


What Happened After Venom

by birdsaretoddlers



Series: After the Lylat Wars [1]
Category: Star Fox Series
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alcohol, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Longer than I HECKING thought, M/M, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Swearing, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:02:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 47,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23755063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdsaretoddlers/pseuds/birdsaretoddlers
Summary: Long story (probably) about Andrew Oikonny after the events of Star Fox 64, had nothing gone to plan. Following the events of soon after Star Fox 64 to after Adventure and beyond. Told from different points of view.
Relationships: Andrew Oikonny/ Lucy Hare, Falco Lombardi/Katt Monroe, Fay/Miyu (Star Fox), I know it's a weird ship but WE'LL GET THERE, Krystal/Fox McCloud, Panther Caroso/Krystal, Wolf O'Donnell/Leon Powalski
Series: After the Lylat Wars [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1711381
Comments: 62
Kudos: 24





	1. Phantom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew comes back after being dead. Star Wolf has moved on after Andross was dead. Neither are truly gone.

_We thought he was dead, after Venom. We all did. Myself included._

_It's never right to leave a wingmate in a bad spot. You live and die for one another. If one of you goes down, you fight harder to avenge them. You find their body, and give them a proper send off to the stars and Lylus' waiting arms for being by your side like that. Or, you patch them up, you buy them a round, and you all live to see another day._   
  
_We didn't think Andrew Oikonny would be so lucky as to survive Venom, when we were shot down by Star Fox. After that Fox and his wingmates flew by over our heads to go and tackle Andross, we thought of nothing but ourselves and our own survival. Our survival, except in the case of Pigma Dengar, who was thinking only of himself. Per the usual. I should have known any blood of that lunatic Andross wouldn't have died in something as simple as a starfighter crash. Not with his abilities. Not like that.  
  
_

_-Wolf O'Donnell, Log 625, six months after Venom_

* * *

So this is where the legendary Wolf O'Donnell now laid his head to rest? This was where the famed Leon Powalski now parked his Wolfen? This was where the infamous Pigma Dengar counted his credits at the end of the day? This was... Andrew Oikonny didn't want to say laughable, because it was not. To get a whole space colony up and running in the Meteo Belt, right under General Pepper's nose! It was a miracle! Life support, air and water filtration, docking bays and lighting, flight paths, generators, all running in an area no sane man would dare to fly into! It was a brilliant move on Wolf's part! Provided it was Wolf's idea at all...  
  
 _Of course it was Wolf's idea!_ He scolded himself. _Wolf is the only person who could round up enough Venomian refugees and space pirates to build such a thing! How dare you begin to question it!_

Though to build it had to have been an ordeal, the colony itself wasn't even completed yet. Blinking lights flashed an open runway in an open-faced chunk of space rock, much larger than it first appeared, to his eyes. The entire colony was much bigger than he had thought, deep inside the belt of meteors, so deep that he couldn't even see the light of Corneria's planet. Though he knew, based on space maps that he had acquired on his journey 'home', that it was directly in front of him. Relatively speaking, direction in space tended to be a moot point. Millions of space meters away lay the crown jewel of the Lylat System. The planet Corneria, filled with the upper crust type people that his uncle and his upbringing had taught him to hate. _They shouldn't have won the war..._  
  
 _Focus, Andrew_ , came a voice at his ear. _One thing at a time._ "Okay, okay, landing gear, landing gear, we can do this, Wolfen II, you got me this far." What a miracle that was. His radar was covered in duct tape and sealant, the little green line that represented his sweeping laser faint and almost nonexistent. He was shocked the dish still worked, he thought it had been crunched to pieces. He had no weapons, not a laser to his name, and no shield system. It had all been sacrificed to get off the ground. His hull was no longer the red, black and grey of the Wolfen II he had been so proud to have his uncle present to him, now, it was all sorts of colors. Red, grey, blue and green, bits of yellow and even purple chunks of spacecraft were shoved in haphazardly, dull and unpolished. It was an absolute disgrace to the ship he had loved. It hurt to fly. It looked like something a child would draw in kindergarten.  
  
However, it could fly, and that was what mattered. It's run was about to come to an end, but he had one more challenge. Actually entering Sargasso Space Colony.

The lighting strips on the hangar bay, cleverly disguised as an outcropping of rock on a meteoroid, suddenly lit up, floodlights casting the closed hangar doors in sharp relief to the burnt umber of the stone around it. Andrew flashed his own lights in response, the code he had been taught to gain access as a friendly, if unfamiliar party. A series of short and long flashes, followed by pauses, a changed version of the morse code thousands of years prior. He hoped the code would suffice, even with his dodgy-looking ship. Space pirates were notoriously untrustworthy, and suspicious of anybody they didn't automatically recognize as one of their own. The laser turrets, mounted on either side of the door, thrummed to sleepy, long-ranged life, turning laboriously to point at him. He had no shields. His hull wouldn't even begin to deflect that blast if they chose to fire, he would be mulched in an instant. _Please, please, just let me in..._

A moment passed which felt like an eternity, and a second. Andrew's Wolfen II was getting closer to the hangar, he could almost see the little glint of glass where the hangar controller would be seated, feet kicked up, his fate in their hands. If the grey blast doors didn't open, he would crash against them, and be killed once his spacecraft opened even the smallest hole to the endless void outside his windows. If they didn't open far enough, the wings would be ripped off, and any sort of ambush waiting for him would swallow him whole. Did he just fly into death? Were they going to tear his ship to shreds, and him along with it?  
  
Andrew hit the landing strip hard, the shock absorbents on his Wolfen were long since worn out and useless for protecting him from the initial jolt, or the bumpiness of the taxi down the runway. Nobody had smoothed it out yet. His head hit the glass above him, as his safety harness failed to strap him in tightly enough, but that pain was minor and unimportant compared to the quickly-approaching, still closed, wall of metal before him.  
  
No. Whatever lazy, half-asleep guard was sitting in that windowed room had decided they had enough of him panicking in place. All at once, the lights behind him began to die out, set by set, as the airlock opened to accept him. This was the right asteroid, the runway continued just far enough for him to be able to coast to a stop. The mag-rails beneath him attached to the bottom of his hull, slowing him down even further, just before the nose of his craft hit the second set of equally impenetrable doors. Space ruffians they may be, but the ones who built this knew what they were doing. The doors behind him, the ones that opened to space, slowly shut behind him, leaving him alone with his thoughts, rather than the rushing, whistling wind that had accompanied him before. The red light above the second set of airlock doors turned to green, and then the entrance opened, mag rails pulling him, and the Wolfen, forward. Deeper into Sargasso. Closer to Wolf.

* * *

  * Macbeth Quartz Glass (Tempered), 3,000 panes - 12,00,000 credits
  * Ichor Copper Wiring, fifteen units - 40,500 credits
  * Ichor Copper Wiring, three deluxe units - 9,600 credits
  * We're in the red again



"Huh?" Wolf O'Donnell snapped his head up, ears perking in the direction of the voice.  
  
"I said, _we are in the red again,"_ Leon Powalski repeated in an exasperated fashion, like a tired mother explaining to her child that just because a cat buried something, it didn't mean it was a treasure. "We do not have nearly enough money for this operation, on this grand a scale." The lizard leaned back in his chair, nail file scratching away at the long claws on his fingers. They had to be kept sharp, but they were getting much too long for his liking. His black bodysuit glinted in the light, reflecting off his scales as well. A picture-perfect leading lizard that wouldn't look out of place on the walls of a museum. Were he not a sadistic killer.  
  
"I'm acutely aware of that," Wolf snarled, angrily picking up his pencil to erase the mistaken input on the paper ledger he was keeping. Funny, they were in the space age, and still used pencil and paper. Leon had a point though, building Sargasso was expensive, far more expensive than he had wanted to believe. These expenses were just what they would need next month, not to mention the months after, or any type of personal items! Personal items he longed for, casting a somewhat loathing glare around the room. The kitchen was meant to serve as a dining room as well, a television still in the box in the corner, a vase on top, with a single bromeliad inside. Hardy, parasitic plants that were edible, but also brought a touch of color to the room, which was much needed. The only other things their 'kitchen' contained was a bare-bones oven and stove combo, a few cabinets, a microwave, and a sink. With a somewhat wry smirk, he remembered how Leon had complained for weeks that this wouldn't do, and yet, somehow something tasty always appeared from the fridge for eating. A magician was the lizard.  
  
Their bedrooms were not much better, he reflected, mattresses and bed frames with a single nightstand each. It was utilitarian, Spartan even, but pleasure items were not the main concern. That could wait until the colony could house the initial influx of refugees and space pirates that were desperate to live here. "I wish these ruffians were as gung-ho about making money as they are about spending it, I can't build a colony if I don't have the credits to buy the materials to make it!" He trailed off into mumbles and bitter words about the men who now relied upon him for safety, for a home. He didn't want this. He didn't want to have to pick up Andross' mess, he didn't sign on to take all of them in!  
  
"Temper, temper," tittered Leon, continuing to pay more attention to his claws than his boss. That was what Wolf liked about him. He never tolerated disobedience, nor misbehaving, but Leon straddled the fine line of insubordination and bringing Wolf's attention back to his own behavior. For a space pirate, he had been told before he could be remarkably polite, but every day he grew more brutal, more bitter. This day was no different.   
  
Wolf rocketed up from his chair, throwing his clawed paws up in the air. "Well, excuse me for being angry that all they give me is demands, and no solutions! I can't pull a home from my fur, or I would have done it already! Credits don't just walk in through the door like-"  
  
Like the knock at the door that interrupted his current tantrum. Well, perhaps tantrum wasn't the word, more like _spirited complaints._ Linguistics aside, nobody bothered Wolf with anything other than bad news. The gentle raise of the ridge of Leon's brow made him want to ignore the call at his front door and smack him for it, but he closed his fist and huffed, ears and tail going down. Wolf forcefully drew his paw through his mohawk to smooth the ruffled, angry fur, bare feet tramping on the hard metal floor as he approached to open the door. It was funny that it hadn't opened. Most of his lieutenants and trusted ruffians had keys to get in during an emergency, the definition of which varied from pirate to pirate. "If it's another expense report, consider yourself jettisoned, you-"  
  
Andrew Oikonny was the last simian he expected to be standing at his door.


	2. Life Will Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew gets settled in, but he isn't the Andrew anybody remembers him being.

_The kid is acting weird. He just isn't himself. I know he went through a lot on Venom, even if he won't talk about it, through threats or bribes. Something is just... Off. He doesn't want to fly anymore. That 'Wolfen' he came back in was a modern marvel, that being it could fly at all, and there's no doubt he likes to fly. So why is he so insistent about staying grounded? I don't understand it._

_Well, fine. If the fella wants to be grounded, I'll let him be. He's too useful to ditch. Plus... I'm kind of fond of the little brat._

_-Wolf O'Donnel, Log 685, eight months after Venom_

* * *

Andrew Oikonny, back from the dead. Well he'd be damned. It had been two months since Andrew showed up on his doorstep, like nothing had ever happened. Of course, the monkey had been changed in that stretch of time. He was... Scrawny, scrawnier than usual, he only weighed about 74 spacekilos when he had crashed on Venom, he was down to about 68 by the time he dragged his sorry self back to Sargasso. How he found this place (listening to drunk space pirates) was impressive, in his current state. He had arrived dirty, without a shave for so long that he was beginning to look like his uncle.  
  
Which had prompted Wolf to pin him to the wall with his arm and pull his blaster out, bayonet at the ready, Leon quick behind him with his own knife. Somehow, he had turned a nail file into a navaja. How Leon was able to constantly pull knives from midair was another one of the wonders of the world and of the lizard, but then, Venomians were always weird.  
  
The story they extracted from Andrew, beginning at knife point, and then over coffee a few weeks later, was even more incredible. Somehow he had survived on the surface of Venom by _himself,_ no team, no backup, just himself and his wits. He was a far cry from the cocky pilot he had been before. In fact, all Andrew had really wanted to do, when Wolf let him up from the chokehold and put his blaster away, was shower. Shower, eat, and sleep, those were his only worldly desires.  
  
As time passed, days turned into weeks, into months. Andrew put his weight back on, and became more like himself. Though, he was changed. Different. Less confident, more like a hermit than a space pilot. In fact, he showed absolutely no interest in flying his Wolfen, or the Wolfens of the team. He only wanted to fix them. That was how Andrew spent most of his time, fixing the Wolfens, upgrading and downgrading them simultaneously, changing the clunky Wolfen IIs back into something like a base form Wolfen, but with a better design, and a better interface and controls. Andrew had explained that his uncle rushed the production of the Wolfen IIs in order to get them on the field, and that was why the augments to their bodies were needed to fly them.  
  
How he knew those details, he refused to explain. He even admitted he did not know how he knew it himself, though chalking it up to head trauma, thanks to his newly-acquired headaches, was the best explanation for his lack of cohesive memory. Wolf didn't pry. The kid needed time, sooner or later, he would remember, and he would want to fly again.

* * *

"Are you going to pick up your wings again, or not?"

Andrew winced at that, arms full of forbidden fruits and vegetables from Leon's personal stash of 'touch these and I'll kill you' dinner ingredients. Wolf O'Donnell stood in the doorway of the kitchen, the chronometer on the wall proclaiming it was far past the snow monkey's bedtime, 03:00 hours. He usually tried to sleep by 01:00, at the latest, if not 23:00, this was out of character for him. Raiding Leon's dinner components, however, was not out of character. This had become a regular thing, ever since Andrew had begun to seclude himself from the others, spending all his time in the lab he had constructed. The fact he got it done in two weeks was a testament to how devoted he had become to his work. "Is this a conversation that can wait, boss?"  
  
"No. No it's not. I need to know if I need to hire another pilot. That means building another Wolfen. Which is your job." Wolf's eye stared into his own, intimidating even though there was only one of said organs left to do the staring. Andrew swallowed, feeling like it was stuck in his throat, right above where the collar of his shirt rested.  
  
Wolf 'Conrad' O'Donnell was not a man you pissed off. Standing at 1.83 spacemeters, Wolf was shorter than Andrew was by a decent amount, but what he 'lacked' in size (relatively speaking) was made up for in pure brawn. Muscular and scarred from his many, many run-ins with Star Fox and other mercs, he cut a figure in a black tank top and tan cargo shorts, gold wolf's head locket dangling on a chain. What the boss was still doing awake at this hour was anyone's guess, but it was probably more ledgers. Andrew had offered to take over the books, but Wolf had refused, citing that he'd been doing it this long, he was going to keep doing it. Fine by Andrew.

What wasn't fine was this interrogation. "I'll pick it up when I feel ready to fly again, okay?"  
  
"Not okay, I need an answer now!" Snarled the lupine, arms crossed over his chest, teeth bared, fur bristled. "If you don't want to fly, that's fine. But I need an answer so I can start looking for replacements!"  
  
Andrew dumped his ill-gotten goodies on the table and gave an aggressive huff in the direction of his boss, clenching his teeth. This was not an argument he wanted to be having, but it was one he knew would have to happen. But he didn't have to play ball. "Fine, replace me!" Reject _him_ would he? After all they'd been through? Leaving the mess on the dining room table, he stomped over, making like he wanted to brush past Wolf and go and hide back in his laboratory. That was what he had been doing all this time, wasn't it? He was stopped, of all things, by Wolf's hand on his shoulder, shoving him backward. It wasn't intended to shove him over, merely shove him back.  
  
Andrew stumbled back a few steps, his long limbs making him gangling and somewhat unsteady on his feet, especially when embroiled in emotion like he was. Without heavy boots to keep him grounded, he floundered backward, looking entirely awkward with his knees raised so high to keep him upright. He tightened his hands into fists, baring his teeth in anger. Being dismissed always hurt, and Wolf had outright told him to get lost!  
  
Or had he? "Knock it off, Oikonny." Wolf didn't move. Stoic and sturdy, he planted his feet to the ground and refused to move a step, even as Andrew postured at him and raised his fur, his new version of once petulant tantrums. He had grown up in the eight months since their defeat, ready to throw down with his own two hands rather than cry to his uncle. "I don't to mean replace you altogether. I mean to let you hang up your Lylus-be-damned wings and stay here as a full-time mechanic." Wolf could feel the anger drain out of Andrew through his feet and into the floor, just like his heart for automatically assuming he was being given the boot. That was okay. The kid had been through one desertion already, of course he would assume he was being spurned again. "I need three pilots. You can stay as a mechanic. You're the best I have for fixing and making Wolfens."  
  
The snow monkey, of course, remained silent. Shock and shame had caused his ears to redden at the points, from the normal punch color right up to strawberry, then, down to a shade of pink like a ballet slipper as embarrassment thrummed through him. "Oh."  
  
"Yeah, oh. Next time you want to hit me, at least try to throw a punch." The iron-solid grip on his shoulder relaxed, as Wolf's paw turned from a vice to a soft, nearly fatherly hand, patting him almost gently on the back. "Go to bed, Andrew. You need to get some rest, I can hear you puttering around in your lab all night." With his piece said, Wolf left Andrew's side to head to the cabinets himself, or at least, he was, before Andrew's voice stopped him.  
  
"Aren't you going to go to bed?" The somewhat wilted figure of Andrew asked.  
  
Silence, and then, "No. I'm too awake to sleep. Don't make me make it an order," proclaimed the boss, sitting at the table once he heard the footsteps of his new mechanic retreating. What the hell had he gotten into. He knew what he was about to get into : Leon's prized wine, the good stuff, not for cooking. Two could steal from the lizard. 


	3. Layer Cake

_Pup's settled in now. Still hides in his room and lab all day and night, but he's settled. He doesn't jump at every noise anymore, he seems comfortable here with Leon and I. Even more comfortable than before. I wonder if he even notices that Pigma is missing._

_I can't believe he's gone himself. Greedy bastard got what was coming to him, of course, but I didn't expect it to go that far. Then again. Once a traitor, always a traitor. Still haven't found a new pilot yet, but I'm getting hundreds of applications. Maybe letting word slip in Sargasso was a poor choice._

_Wolf O'Donnell, Log 687, eight months after Venom_

* * *

"Three, and at least two under each cup."  
"I raise the bid. Three, three under each cup."  
"You aren't even _close."_

Another day, another game of Liar's Dice. Another round of Wolf losing extremely badly. The table, and the dice on it that determined he was good, but not better, at this game, rattled as Wolf slammed his fist on it. "Dammit, that isn't even the right call, Leon!"  
  
"It is not my fault you are poor at games of chance." Apathetic to the plight of the losing gambler, the tail that belonged to the chameleon snaked onto the table to bring the pot, which consisted of one grape soda, closer to himself. He wasn't one for treats, sugar, or anything of the sort, but seeing Wolf's red face get even redder with the snark, and the lack of manners, was just too good to resist. "You always were the worst gambler of us all. But, if it pleases you, I will certainly call you a _liar."_

"Piss off, that was just a bad hand, I-"  
  
"Where is Pigma?"  
  
Lost in the shuffle of a 'lover's quarrel', Andrew finally piped up, looking up from his own hand of dice, which would have gotten him nowhere if three remained the face called. "I haven't seen him here. Not once. I thought he was off doing... Something, but he hasn't come back yet. And you told me I could have the 'spare' room for my workshop..."  
  
The silence was deafening. It was true, nobody had seen hide or hair of the swine, and that was for a reason. The grey paw that belonged to the lupine went up and scratched at the back of his neck, through the thick fur that probably needed a trim soon. "Fired him." Please, don't ask why.  
  
"Why?"   
  
Damn that brat. Wolf heaved a sigh, setting his cup and dice aside and looking to Leon. As if on cue, Leon left, returning to the sink where the dishes from dinner were 'soaking' while they played dice. To supplement the rounds of dice, Leon reached into the cabinet below, to find something Wolf would want to drink. No milk, not with this sort of question. "To tell you why, I'd have to tell you about what happened on Venom." Why you were left behind. "Sure you still want to hear that?"  
  
Again, silence, save for the quiet falling of a clear liquid into a small shot glass. The crude shelter had taken form into something far more comfortable, the television had been unboxed and set up, the bromeliad having taken it's rightful place in a small pot on top. A carpet had been laid out and a living room constructed, with couch, easy chair and side tables. Even the dinner table had gotten an upgrade, from one of white plastic and black metal to wood, at Leon's insistence. The rest of the cabinets were put up and filled, dining chairs to match the table having been acquired and placed. It was, by all accounts, a comfortable place to live, for space pirates like them. Even the bedrooms were well furnished now. However, it was a place not meant for three, but four, judging by the empty chair between Leon and Andrew. Something happened. "Yes, I want to hear it."  
  
The house-lizard returned with the glass, and with the bottle, and set both down. Wolf reached for it, grumbled something about 'why did I open my mouth', and looked Andrew in the eyes. "Fine. You won't like it."

* * *

There were a lot of things Wolf O'Donnell didn't know. Why Andross picked him of all people to lead a squadron. Why he had gotten stuck with his nephew. Why life had to kick him while he was down, and then kick him a few more times for good measure. What way was up.  
  
Well, that could be solved easily. Wolf spat, noting the copper tang in his mouth and the new absence of a few teeth. The spit hit his lap, and he noted that he was still seated upright. Good. He wasn't dead yet. That was a relief.   
  
His head pounded, as memories came flooding back to him all at once. Star Fox. They had to fight and protect Andross, they were the last line of defense before the 'emperor's' chambers, where the man and legend himself resided. If they failed... Failure had not been an option presented to him, and yet it happened anyway. Wolf had refused to believe that he **could** fail this fight, and yet, he did. Four loud, loud booms above his head with corresponding flashes and streaks of light signaled the departure of the team that had just made him taste the bitter flavor of defeat, again. Which number fight was this? He couldn't be sure. What he was sure of, was that he had to get moving, and get moving now.  
  
The metal augments in his head were painful and stuck tight, but not immobile. He pulled them off his head and groped blindly for the eyepatch he kept stashed in the glove box, pulling it on to cover the hole in his head. _Okay, princess, now that you look your best. Get up._

Wolf looked up. The glass of his Wolfen's cockpit was somewhat cracked, but not shattered. That was good. What was even better? The two spots of light, pinging on his radar. Leon and Pigma's distress signals. They were already awake, and likely, heading to one another's location. Wolf flicked the switch to turn on his own signal, lights turning red and flooding his cockpit. That would turn him into a beacon for Leon and Pigma to follow, so they could meet. He had to get up and out so he could greet them, and get the hell off the surface of this Lylus-forsaken planet.

His toes could curl. His fingers were working. He seemed to have all ten of both. Okay, that was good. His tail wagged, his ears flopped from side to side, and his eye, the one he had left, didn't seem to be hurt. That was even better. He was sore, bloody, and bruised, but overall he was functional. As much as it pained him, he pulled his legs up and stood, pushing the hatch up as he went. If they were lucky, they had crashed in farmland, and would be okay.  
  
They were not lucky. The harsh environment of Venom reached out to choke him, acidic water spouting from steam geysers, rocks and red dirt coating the outside of his Wolfen. It wasn't too damaged, he had all his wings and the important parts, it's nose was just buried in the dirt. He could still fly, he bet. He looked up, dark clouds looming overhead.  
  
 _Those aren't clouds._ Indeed they were not. The dark shapes hurtling in the atmosphere were Cornerian Defense Force planes, and they didn't look happy. _Of course, they're gonna bomb the shit out of this place!_ Corneria could never play fair. Of course they were going to make sure there were no survivors. _I need to find the others and get out. Now._

That, fortunately, was an easy enough task. Wolf vaulted out of his Wolfen, falling to his knees as the joints gave out, and unceremoniously eating dirt because of it. _You're better than this, a little crash won't hurt you. Get up! Move!_ Bidden to rise by his own consciousness, he wiped his good eye and scanned the perimeter. More steam geysers. More rocks. More sand. More figures of stunted trees. Did trees on Venom normally move? "Leon!?"  
  
"Wolf!" That was them. Leon, his second in command, and Pigma bringing up the rear, a fair distance behind the lizard as he sprinted over to meet up with his boss. He looked hurt, favoring one leg over the other, but didn't seem too badly injured. Not at first glance. "I was worried, your signal wasn't coming on! It should have been automatic when we crashed!"   
  
"So sayeth Andross," grunted the lug behind him. Pigma Dengar. Chronic gambler, and notorious traitor of the original Star Fox team. And of course, a famed 'save his own ass' type of person. "I'm guessing that you had to hit the switch manually too?"  
  
"Precisely. But if you two made out fine..." Wait. Two? "Where's Andrew?"  
  
Leon shifted from one foot to the other, then winced, and returned to standing mostly on one leg. It must have been painful for even Leon to change his behavior and natural stance. "I'm not sure. Pigma and I crashed side by side, about a quarter-mile away. If you're here, and you haven't heard from Andrew, then-"  
  
"He must've hit farther on in the geyser fields," Pigma finished for him. "In which case, it's a lost cause. We need to go."  
  
That was an unacceptable answer. The most unacceptable one somebody could ever give to Wolf, actually, the leather of his flight gloves creaking as he tightened his fists. "Absolutely not! I'm not leaving the kid here!"  
  
"The CDF is about to turn Venom into even more of a wasteland than it already is, we can't afford to stick around and look!" The pig fired back, taking a step forward and pointing a finger in the face of his boss. The natural wheeze and whine to his voice made his vowels longer than average, or was that the blood from his nose? The baring of Wolf's teeth did not dissuade him. "Look, if his manual SOS switch hasn't been touched, he probably died on impact! We can't waste time looking for a dead kid!"  
  
"It's not 'wasting time', it's trying to give a wingmate the honor they deserve! I know honor isn't a concept you understand, Dengar, but I do!" Wolf jabbed a thumb back at himself, and then slapped the offending hand out of his face. Pigma was lucky he didn't tear it off with his bare fangs. "Maybe he's still out here and just out cold, or his ship is broken, I just woke up myself! I'm not leaving a teenager to die out here! I promised to-"  
  
The argument could have continued to rage for hours, if not days, but the low flyover of a pack of CDF scouts cut the fight short. The three pilots hit the deck, so to speak, and waited for the thrumming noise to pass them by. It took longer than Wolf would have liked to get back to his feet, even with the not-entirely-unwelcome hand of Leon pulling on his collar. He glanced up. The sky had filled with CDF ships, black like hornets, ready to start the assault as soon as the order was given. They were out of time. With a scowl, Wolf shook his head and snarled. "... Fine. Okay. We'll leave. We have to get out before the CDF tries to make sure we're dead. Get to your Wolfens. If you see Andrew's ping, go to it."

* * *

"But wait," Andrew interjected. "You told me this was about how you fired Pigma. You didn't fire him at all, or leave him on Venom!" Like you did me.

"I'm not done yet, kid." What Wolf had finished was at least three shots, and he was working on a fourth. This was not an easy story for him to tell. Leaving a wingmate behind to get mulched by CDF bombers was not his proudest moment whatsoever. "It was that kind of selfish, leave your mates behind attitude that I didn't like about him. I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay and find you. At least collect your body."  
  
"Provided there was one left," Leon supplied, taking the bottle away and corking it. Wolf didn't need more of the sadness juice, at least, that's what he had determined for himself. "I couldn't find your Wolfen either, and I looked on the flight out of Venom."  
  
"I fired him for being selfish, greedy, and an all-around asshole. I want a team that would live and die for me. For one another. Somebody who would just... Leave a pilot behind, with no second thought? That's not somebody I want by my side."   
  
"So where did he go," questioned the snow monkey across the table, hands flat on the surface of the wood, eyes wide. "Did he say? And where did you go after Venom?"  
  
Wolf and Leon shared a look, and then, shook their heads. "That's enough storytime, pup. It's your turn to do the dishes. I'm going to bed," Wolf began to rise from his chair, but Andrew's pleading voice stopped him from getting far.  
  
"Wait! You can't just leave it there!"  
  
"I can. I did. Do the dishes and get to bed, kid."


	4. Alleycat

_I brought a new pilot onto the team. A hotshot by the name of Panther Caroso. He's a loverboy and thinks too much about his seduction skills, not enough about a fight, but I can't afford to be picky right now. Pickier than I already was, denying all the applications from the pirates took a lot of strength. Men that would fight and die for me, only to be told that I didn't want them by my side? I hope this doesn't start a rebellion. We can't afford that right now.  
  
_ _I can hardly afford to pay Panther at all._

_-Wolf O'Donnell, Log 689, eight months after Venom_

* * *

Claws clicked against the polished lacquer of the dining room table. It wasn't just Leon's claws, it was Wolf's own set too, white and nearly translucent, compared to Leon's own black ones, thick and dark as the endless space frontier. A staccato of annoyance and irritation. There was a reason for the claw clicking, of course. That reason had a name, a face. And a seat at the table that was, as of yet, unfilled. Rude.  
  
"Ah... Has Panther made a bad first impression...?" The honored guest spoke up. Panther, newest pilot of the Star Wolf team, a man who had filled up the previously vacant dining room chair, red fabric and stuffing bolted down to the wood with golden buttons. It had been an expensive chair. Wood wasn't easy to get yet, Sargasso's newly constructed arbor was still only home to baby trees. Good quality wood, like the stuff the chairs were made of, was even harder to get your hands on, as Cornerians typically refused to sell to anyone who even looked like a space pirate. To leave one empty and not sat in was almost offensive! To the budget, if nothing else!  
  
"No. This is not about you. The boy has lost what little manners he had," growled the skinny predator, dragging his claws against the table before picking them up to observe them, his other hand lazily cradling his head. "That's all." One eye turret swiveled to look at Panther, the other, at Wolf. "Someone should go get him. I am certain he forgot the time."  
  
Someone was big, furry, and capable of taking a hint without being swatted with a chameleon tail. Making a point to capture the end of the appendage under his bare foot as he got up, he made sure to show his displeasure with Andrew on his face. "I'll go and fetch him. Probably caught up in building your Wolfen, Caroso." The loss of Pigma's Wolfen still stung. Bastard had taken it with him when he left, rather than commission a spare ship that was more befitting of someone with his station. Parading around in the damn thing should've made him easy to find and to 'reacquire' (see, steal) the ship, but so far, he had yet to be seen by any Sargasso scouts. He couldn't afford to buy them off, either, Wolf had made sure of that. The price tag was bigger than Pigma's weight. That ship was worth more than he was by a Katina mile. "You two just get to know each other."

The gulp of Panther's nervousness was more satisfying than it should have been, with the far-too-toothy grin of Wolf's personal assassin keeping Panther company as O'Donnell left their home. He let the expression of anger on his face drop from displeasure to worry as soon as his back was turned to his team and the door shut behind him.

* * *

O'Donnell was glad he had taken no bets with Leon, because, as per the norm, he was right. Andrew wasn't in any sort of dire straits, in the personal Star Wolf hangar and mechanic's bay. In fact, he was quite the opposite, he was in his element! There was a few rare, very rare, moments where Andrew would let his natural abilities shine, but this was one of them. 

Andrew Oikonny was hung upside down from the metallic rafters, but rather than be in distress, he was happy. Hanging onto it with his feet and tail, he tinkered with something on the nose of his own Wolfen. A black box, about a few inches in diameter, printed with a white emblem. Star Wolf's emblem. True to his word, Andrew hadn't flown a 'mission' since he returned. Of course he flew his new Wolfen once a week to keep the systems running smoothly, but he hadn't flown it seriously in a long time. The paint job still looked fresh, if a little different than usual, the landing gear was spotless and rust-free. It looked like he even had time to halfway finish Panther's Wolfen, though it lay forlorn and half-forgotten in the corner. The frame was assembled, and the cockpit had been lowered into place, but the hull and computer parts were still strewn across the floor, along with tools. The rest of the mechanics and inner workings were still in labeled boxes. Whatever this newest project was, Andrew had deemed it 'more important' than the construction of a new Wolfen. The priorities of that simian were rarely ever the same on a day-to-day basis, and this was no different.   
  
"Andrew!" Wolf barked the moment the doors to the hangar wooshed open with a pneumatic hiss. "You're late!"  
  
"WAH!" Perhaps yelling at the monkey was a poor choice. Andrew went crashing down, hit the Wolfen chest first, and then bounced off and onto the floor. At least whatever he was working on had good suspension? Noting his mistake, Wolf dashed around the Wolfen to check on his mechanic and current target of an ass-chewing. He couldn't berate him if he had to go to the med bay because of Wolf's stupidity, and the lack of punctuality on his own part! Well, he could berate him, but he'd be an asshole. Leon had been on his case lately about his own 'lapses in manners' since the Lylat Wars. Wolf crouched down and leaned over his form.  
  
"What the hell are you doing? You're late for dinner." No response, as Andrew slowly sat up, rubbing the back of his head with a greasy, oily hand. Of course, nothing could keep the macaque down for long, not even eating shit from ten feet up! He jumped to his bare feet, nearly clipping Wolf's snoot on his way up, and offered a beaming, if fanged smile in return to his question.  
  
"Oh good, you're just in time!"  
  
"I am? Just in time for what?" Questioned the boss of Sargasso, and of Andrew himself, to boot. "I repeat, the hell are you up to?"  
  
"I just installed a new piece of technology onto my Wolfen," Andrew boasted, scrambling up and onto the Wolfen. Using Wolf's shoulder as a launchpad after he hauled his top half up, he rolled into the cockpit and thunked himself down into his pilot's seat. "Check it!"  
  
"Check _what-"_ Was Lylus intent on not allowing him to finish a sentence and get an answer today? Wolf scrambled back, as Andrew's frantic switch throwing and button-mashing made the spacecraft cough a thin trail of white smoke from the exhaust pipes. The roar of a Wolfen coming to life was a familiar, comforting sound to Wolf, but the small black box on the nose of Andrew's Wolfen was no ordinary trinket. At the push of a button inside the high-class spacecraft, there was a slight lilt in the engine's normal resting purr. All at once, a ripple went over the Wolfen, wings raising and lowering, machinery chugging away inside as the normal checks were performed. Suddenly, the ship rippled again, but this time, originating from the nose of the Wolfen, the box specifically, it began to disappear. It was a gradual change, but it wasn't altogether a slow one, creeping across the exterior of the Wolfen, until the ship, and Andrew's bottom half, disappeared.   
  
"Isn't that _neat?_ I've mastered a stealth cloaking like nobody has ever made before! Hey, are you okay?" The question followed Andrew posing, like the prideful dork he was, in his cockpit, hands on his hips, grinning to the sky above. The thud of Wolf falling onto his ass in shock was not the thunderous applause of Lylus like he was expecting. The fall did not clue him in to Wolf's state. Andrew poked his head over the rim of his Wolfen to look at his boss. Or, the invisible Wolfen, at any rate. "This is a good thing, I can go out now!"  
  
That. Was odd. "What do you mean, you can go out now?" There was nothing banning Andrew from leaving. In fact, as a pilot of Star Wolf, he essentially had the run of Sargasso and the space beyond! What the hell was he on about, 'could go out now?'  
  
Andrew jumped out, leaned down, and yanked Wolf back to his feet. Of course, he also avoided anything close to an answer like he was allergic to them. "Isn't this cool? It's a light-refracting pigmentation that I managed to replicate off Leon's scales! I can use a camera system to change the pigments on the outer layer of my Wolfen to reflect my surroundings! This won't trick infrared, and I'm see-through, not pass-through, so sonar will still hit, but still!"  
  
"Hey, no, wait a minute," Wolf snarled. "Why did you need..." The lupine waved a hand at the abomination beside them. "This, to leave Sargasso?"  
  
"Jeez, you ask a lot of questions. Don't worry about it, okay?" Had his beaming grin faltered a little? "What did Leon make for dinner?"

Wolf opened his mouth to start chewing him out, med bay trip be damned, but Andrew beat him to the punch. His face fell as realization struck him, with the weight of the now visible again Wolfen. "Oh, shoot! Panther's over for initiation, isn't he? No wonder you're pissed! Leon's gonna kill me if dinner gets cold, he's been talking about it all day!" With that, Andrew put his long legs to use and bolted, leaving Wolf alone with his questions, the automatic doors of the hangar bay barely opening in time for him to speed through them. Wolf's cry of 'hey, wait a minute! Get back here!' fell on entirely deaf ears. That _brat._

 _"You are on dish duty for a MONTH, boy,"_ Wolf snarled, half to himself. Giving up the fight, he proceeded to the hangar doors, but as he hit the light switch to not burn electricity, he cast one last, longing look over his shoulder to Andrew's Wolfen. It had automatically shut down without continued pilot input, as it had only been put into neutral, not drive, but... What the hell was Andrew's game? With Leon's famous casserole waiting for him, he decided that Andrew's eccentricities could wait. At least until his stomach was full. The newly tricked out Wolfen offered no solace as he left.


	5. And Now,

_Andrew and I played Twenty Questions today, except he was questioning, and I was answering, and there was no object to point at in the end of it all. He asked if I remembered meeting him. I said that I did. He asked if I remembered my first love. I told him I had never been 'in love', but I remembered my first girlfriend. He asked me if I remembered living with my parents._

_I asked him what his game was. Then he asked me something... Weird. He asked me... 'Do you remember being born?' I told him no. Nobody remembers being born. The kid said his uncle said he remembered being born. I told him that his uncle 'remembered' a lot of stuff, and would pay for it._

_He asked what I meant by that._

_I said that what he did was between himself and Lylus. Andrew said he didn't believe in Lylus. I altered my statement to 'whatever gods you believe in.'_

_He told me he didn't believe in any gods, and that his uncle said theological debate was for the weak minded and the simple. I ordered him to cram it, and ask his uncle about being born, if it was so important._

_He got really quiet then. He hasn't been acting quite right since..._

_Wolf O'Donnell, Log 1490, three years after Venom_

* * *

Star Wolf needed money. It was cold, it was dark, and they needed money. Building Sargasso had taken far more cash than they had all anticipated. LTC Loans was not as good of a company as they had anticipated, even after double checking their rates and reading their contract through twice. Somehow, they had discovered that the fake name they were using could be traced back to the space pirates of Sargasso, and figured out that they could shark more money out of that little colony than they could get by providing the information to Pepper, on the off chance he would give them a cut of Star Wolf's bounty.  
  
It was cold, it was dark, and they were out of time for their next payment. LTC let them run credit up to a week past the due date, but that just racked up even more debt. They were stuck until they could pay the loan off, or extort their freedom from the CEO, but whoever was running that shitshow was even sneakier than they were. None of their Sargasso Scouts could track the billings back to an address, they couldn't even find a receptionist to kidnap and threaten. They had to come up with enough cash to pay their bills, no matter how slow business was, no matter how few missions were up for taking.  
  
It was cold, it was dark, but Andrew knew what to do. He just hated having to do it.

* * *

Thankfully, Wolf had dropped the subject of him using his stealth device years ago. Leon had decided to silently enforce the punishment, and abuse the fact, that he was doing dishes for the month, but Andrew couldn't complain. That was the best month of his life when it came to dinnertime, even though he ended up scraping pots and pans of melted cheese long into the night. Leon's home-cooked meals were the thing that Star Wolf was waking up for, these days, much more than anything else. Leon's cooking skills came from life on Venom, he supposed, he could make dinner out of animal scraps and onions. He preferred not to, but he could, and Andrew was thankful for it, since that was what had been on the menu as of late. Times were getting to be rough, but they didn't have to be. Not for much longer. He could pay his way in Star Wolf, even without flying missions, because he knew of something that the rest of them didn't.

He knew where his uncle's labs were.

Of course, he had been coming here for a long, long time. When he was younger, he would come here with his uncle, watch him work, spend the day with his toy star fighters on the polished white floor, while Andross made plans to destroy Lylat, for the 'love of his life'. He knew how to use the lights on his Wolfen to illuminate the small passage into the meteor where this particular lab was hidden, the bay being just wide enough for three ships to sit abreast, and one ship to take off at a time. He knew how to get in, too.  
  
After the small set of doors, the same blood red as this meteor's stone, rushed closed, and the emergency lights came on, Andrew took a breath. He hadn't been here in so many years, and yet, somehow, he thought he could still smell the mint gum his uncle kept in his breast pocket. That was crazy talk, of course, his uncle had been dead three years. Even the recycled air wouldn't hold that smell.  
  
Right?  
  
Right. Why was his hand shaking as he pressed the button to open the cockpit? Why did he feel like jelly as he slowly stood and pushed the hatch open? Why did it feel like his footsteps echoed so loudly as his feet hit the solid rock beneath? Nerves. He was nervous. Why?  
  
Questions for another day, when the loan sharks weren't banging at Star Wolf's door, metaphorically, demanding payment that was all too real. By the time he reached the clean white door, having cracked open his Wolfen's storage compartment and retrieved his crowbar, his shaky steps had smoothed out, and his rapid breathing had calmed. Even his palms were no longer sweaty, as he bent over, just a bit, to open his eye with his fingers. A small, green, fan-shaped laser flickered to life, dim but functional, and swept over his eye. Once, twice, up and down, left to right and back. Maybe it wouldn't accept him, maybe after all this time it wouldn't let him in at all-  
  
_W E L C O M E,_

_D R . A N D R O S S  
_

_... That's weird. But unimportant._ The mechanical, deep voice of a droid had called him by the wrong name. Intentionally or otherwise, it made a shiver run down his spine, a bead of cold sweat following, as the door before him slid open and revealed Andross' old lab, still sheathed in shadow.

Andrew stepped inside, readying the crowbar for any number of imaginable or unimaginable assailants. He hit the lights with his other hand, his left hand. No immediate threats jumped out at him, screaming for blood and vengeance, and he breathed a deeply relived sigh as lights clicked on with loud clangs, one after the next after the next. The man had been a neat freak, and this was no different. Nothing was awry in the room, it was like his uncle had just stepped out for a moment, and would be right back. White walls and floors, smooth and polished, greeted him as the lab sprawled beyond, the space inside the meteor allowing for just enough room to fit all the generators in the back half of the 'complex'. If it could be called that.  
  
Tables upon tables lined the walls, adorned with a microwave and a coffee maker, the most dependable tools in a scientist's arsenal. A minifridge sat underneath it, and against Andrew's better judgement, perhaps to calm his nerves, he went over and knelt down, opening the door.   
  
Grape soda. Just like he thought, kept here for him, when he was younger, and could entertain himself for hours in these labs. Something about the familiar sight made him smile, just a little, enough to reassure him that, in fact, his uncle's ghost was not here to kill him. "You don't mind if I take it, right unc? Sure you don't," he said to the silent air around him, quiet save for the humming of the generators. He reached inside, pleased to find the air inside the fridge was still cold, and grabbed his abandoned prize. He intentionally ignored the expiration date, it had been kept cold and in a metal container. If a can of beans was good forever, why would a soda not be good for a few years? Andrew leaned back against the counter, shutting the door with his tail, and cracked open the soda, holding it in both hands like he did as a child as he sipped at it. Flat. _What else did I expect?_ He thought irritably, scratching behind his ear. _It's not like they're fresh._

He took stock of the rest of the room. Old machines still lay askew on the work benches, some in pieces, some intact, others broken beyond all repair. But, if he was right, there should still be something far more useful here. His uncle was never the type to keep all his eggs in one basket. Well, materials wise, anyhow. He set down the half-finished soda and left it there, walking off, deeper into the maw of the dead. He lightly brushed his fingertips over the work surfaces, noting how they weren't coming away covered in dust. _Must be the filtration in here is really good. That's all,_ he reaffirmed, refusing to think on it further. A large, open, shadowed window stood behind this bench, open to the space beyond. It was beautiful. It was breathtaking, crystal clear, like he could step out into the sky, and keep walking.

"It faces Corneria." The remark made him frown. Why would it face Corneria? Why wouldn't it? His uncle hated that planet, but enough to stare at it, day after day...? Maybe he was just keeping track of the ships that went in and out. Of course he would need a lookout window too, in case anybody ever found this place! His uncle, pragmatic as ever! A window like this was a splendid idea, and nobody from outside could see it! It was shadowed glass, the light wouldn't go through! How brilliant!  
  
He moved on. Andrew knew what he was looking for, it wouldn't be hard to pick out, once he found it! Or once he tripped over it, which is exactly what he did, swinging around a bench and eating shit onto the polished floor under him, as he headed for the utility room. He grunted, and picked himself up, noting with a spike of alarm that he might have gotten blood on the precious floor!  
  
He didn't. That was a relief. What was even more of a relief? He had found what he was here for! With a triumphant little laugh, he lifted it into the air. Copper wire! A spool of it! Perhaps, this was a little... Unorthodox, to be excited about. Perhaps lifting an industrial-sized, 22.5sk roll of wire over his head was a poor choice, as he grunted, stumbled, and almost fell on his ass. However, this was what he needed. This was what _Star Wolf_ needed. A little stroke of luck. The current price of raw copper? 10 credits per sk. "Thank you, uncle Andross!"

No reply. Andrew didn't expect one, as he put the spool on the ground and began rolling it, looping his tail through it and pulling it along as he walked. He made sure to pick up, and finish, his can of grape soda as he ambled along, but. He checked the motion to throw it into the garbage compacter as he left, and instead, took it with him out the door, hitting the lights as he went. Perhaps it was silly, to not want to tarnish the memory of his uncle, by putting one more piece of trash in the can. Perhaps he was silly for tarnishing it in the first place by stealing the roll of wire. These were things he could ponder later, as for now?  
  
He had to get this roll of wire in the Wolfen, sell it, and make it home to Wolf, without raising any suspicion in the process. From CDF grunts or from Wolf himself, when he threw down the cash stack on his table. _Won't Wolf be proud of me? Now if only I could shake this feeling I'm being watched..._


	6. That's a Puzzle!

_We're out of money. I don't have enough to pay the debt collectors. I don't have enough to buy more materials for Sargasso. I barely have enough to pay Panther and afford to get groceries for the rest of the month. If something doesn't change soon, Star Wolf is out of luck._

_We're going to have to do something desperate, and do it soon. I just need to find that desperate, crazy enough option, and hope to Lylus that it works like I need it to. I don't want to go and bum off my sister._

_I'm not going to go home to my father._

_Wolf O'Donnell, Log 2585, six years after Venom_

* * *

Somehow, in the three years following Andrew's first dive into Andross' labs, times had gone from bad to worse. Sargasso's construction had entirely shut down, and the generators were beginning to be on their last legs. Without money to order replacement parts, soon, the solar panels that powered this place would break, one by one. The life support would follow. And then? The criminals that made their hideouts there, the families from Venom that had been displaced that were raising children there, all of the space pirates that called this place home, and Wolf O'Donnell their leader, would have to scatter like rats. Corneria would pick them off. One. By. One. Until there was nothing left to stop the tyrannical rule of Corneria's overpowering _superiority._ The word was so saccharine it made Wolf want to vomit. It could drive a man to drink.

That's what Star Wolf was doing, in a booth at a bar nestled firmly in space pirate territory, far, far away from the troubles at home. Nobody hear would spill about Andrew's continued living. It had already been broken, that bit of news, by jabbering pirates too afraid to die by the righteous blade of the Cornerians. Corneria's 'lovable' president, Walker Nagiri, was a joke. He always had been. The true force behind Corneria was it's military, and that was led by General Pepper. Men lived and died by his orders, and many space pirates, pants long since wet and tears already having been cried, had tried to strike deal after deal with him, when he waltzed into interrogation chambers to inquire about the location of Star Wolf, Venomian forces, anything left after Andross.

 _I'll give you one better!_ They all cried, _I can tell you where Andrew Oikonny is! He's still bloody well alive!_

Of course, nobody could find him, or Star Wolf. Sargasso was, as of yet, undiscovered. Meteo was too dangerous to fly into, too thick to blast to pieces without potentially endangering Corneria, and too much of a hassle to be worth the precious time of the CDF. That story was growing older and older for General Pepper, the song and dance was growing stale, the trail of Star Wolf growing colder and colder. He knew they were out there, he knew they were active, but his men could _never_ pin them down. Nor could they corroborate the story of Andrew Oikonny not being dead yet. All his men had told him the simian was paste in Venom's geyser fields, and he was loathed to consider that he may not have been.

That was what made bars like these so priceless for Star Wolf. Not just the fact that wasting money on booze was becoming harder and harder to justify, but the fact that the bartender and patrons would keep their mouths shut. The ursine bartender was content to shut her trap, as long as the credits being dropped on her counters were authentic, and the normal rough and rowdy crowd couldn't afford to be caught themselves. The relative silence from all parties was what allowed such an easygoing atmosphere to thrive here.

Unless you were hundreds of thousands of credits in debt, like Star Wolf was. The rhythmic thunking of Wolf's bayonet into the wood of their table as he played stabberscotch accompanied a rather somber round of drinks, beer for the lupine and the simian, tequila for the kitty, and wine for the lizard. Indulging in their vices of choice, before the vice of the noose of debt closed around their necks. There wasn't much said between them. There wasn't much to _be_ said, other than complaints.

Panther was the first of them all to raise one. "Panther is very loyal to you. He will stay, even after the money had dried. Though he wishes it were not so soon..."

"Yeah," grunted Wolf, not even raising his eyes from his rather dangerous game. What did he have to lose? "I know. I'm sorry Panther. I'm trying my best to keep you paid, but there just isn't much money out in this economy." That is, the economy that wasn't kissing the feet of President Nagiri.

"It is saying something, when the top planet has more money than all the other planets combined." Leon spoke, mumbling through the wine glass. It was his third, and for somebody with a low tolerance like him, this was too much, and he was drunk. Not piss drunk yet, but miserable in a way he didn't often let himself become. 

"Fuckin' Corneria."

Wolf's colorful sentiment was given a subdued 'here, here' by the pilots seated beside and across from him, but whatever was said made Andrew pick his head up. He had hardly touched his drink anyway, he wasn't one for alcohol. "Yes, Corneria does have all the money, doesn't it? Maybe we're going about this the wrong way. There's only so much flotsam in the ocean, why not go for the source, make a withdrawal from the bank of Lylat?"

Crickets. Absolute crickets from his friends and comrades, or, people he liked to consider to be friends. It was absolute quiet, save for the loud, final _THUD_ of Wolf's bayonet going through the wood, standing up straight. He was lucky this was a rowdy bar, or the tender may have been upset. "What are you implying, Oikonny." His tone brokered absolutely no games. Whatever he said, it would have to be good. Otherwise, he just bought himself a dope slap. O'Donnell's temper was not one to be trifled with.

Andrew knew it, and his swallow was both visible and audible, as he pulled at his collar, stammering words out as they fell into his mouth. "I-I was j-just thinking, w-w-we need money, a-and Corneria has it, so why not... M-Make Corneria pay for something? S-Something Pepper would care about?"

"Ah, wonderful idea, we enter a multi-level marketing scheme and sell Corneria scented candles to make back our original investment." Truly, only the most dastardly of plans would do for Star Wolf.

The white-furred monkey glared at Leon. "Not helpful!"

"Spit it out, Andrew! Panther would like to hear more of this plan." The feline grinned, trying his best to keep a slapfight from breaking out.

Thank fate for Panther. Emboldened by this show of support from the one member of Star Wolf that really should know better, Andrew grabbed a small pencil and a napkin from the booth's amenities rack, and began to sketch away at a plan. "Okay, so, Corneria holds about ninety percent of the wealth in the system. And a good chunk of _that_ is in the Cornerian Defense Force's budget. What if, we kidnap somebody close to Pepper, somebody he would care about, and then ransom them off?"

Again. Crickets. Andrew was beginning to feel the cold drops of sweat drip down his spine as three pairs of eyes stared at him, and then, slowly, began to look between one another. This. Was an ambitious plan, especially for a squadron of pilots that had been running petty missions for almost two years now, as the money in the system began to dry up. Eventually, after what seemed like a lifetime or two, they slowly began to nod. "Panther thinks it could be worth a shot."

The tension broke, and Andrew grinned as Leon blinked and nodded, beginning to sober up at the very prospect of a payday that large. "Hmm, yes. It could be our best chance at digging ourselves out of this hole we have found ourselves in. But who to ensnare..."

"Not Fay Spaniel," Panther spoke up. "Fay is his grandpuppy, but Panther thinks attacking the McNabb base on Katina head-on, in our current state, would be a poor choice. Especially with Bill Grey there, mm, yes. Perhaps-"

"I already know who it's going to be," Wolf swiped his hand across the table, picking up his knife as he made the motion. "What's important is, this kind of thing would be all hands on deck. There is no room for error." His one good eye focused on Andrew's own gaze, one purple stare making contact with Andrew's brown one. "You would have to break your illusion. Corneria would know you were alive. Are you okay with this?"

The focus, and yet, the concern in Wolf's glare was touching. To even consider how this would make him feel, to even ask if he would be okay with blowing his cover... Wolf truly did care for Andrew, didn't he? _I don't deserve a boss like him._ "Yes. I will come back to life. For Star Wolf."

"Okay," the lupine sighed, shaking his head so hard his ears flapped. Motioning with his paw for Star Wolf to lean in, he stole Andrew's pencil from the snow monkey's hand and began to sketch on a new napkin. "Here's how we're going to do this," he said, voice lowered.

* * *

"I'm so pleased you want to be in my class! I'm always happy to see new faces. Your lack of records is..."

"Concerning? Yes, yes. Do not be alarmed."

"I'm not alarmed at all, I'm sure they're just lost in the authoritative shuffle. What did you say your name was again, mister...?"

"Pablo. Pablo Coracita."

"Yes, Mister Coracity. You're going to want to invest in new clothing. Fichnia's weather can turn brutal."


	7. Is There Still a Room?

_To Ignatius,_

_Fuck you. I'm not coming back yet. I can make it on my own. I don't need you, or your men, or your ships, or your charity. Just you wait and see what myself and my men can do. Just you wait and see._

_Look for me on the news. It'll be the top story._

_Rot in hell._

_Wolf O'Donnell, Log 2586, six years after Venom_

* * *

"Your fucking elbow is in my _nose, Leon."  
_

"Well I apologize _so very sincerely,_ would you like to hide in another closet? That's right, _there isn't one, you oversized-_ "

"Would you two shush??? I hear them coming!"

* * *

This new student was... An odd one, to say the least. Lucy couldn't help but feel as if she had met him before, somewhere, somehow. Then again, she didn't leave Fichnia much anymore, having thrown herself into her job after being... Rejected, by the Star Fox team. _Her. Rejected!_

 _For some big-breasted bimbo that had spent years crashed on an uncolonized planet who's inhabitants aren't yet capable of basic space travel,_ the hare thought bitterly, before checking the anger. _Now, now. Be polite! Be courteous. This is a guest. I'm sure Krystal is capable._ Capable of keeping Fox entertained, at least. That thought was just plain rude! Focus, Lucy. This was not to time to be diving into rabbit holes of hatred, never mind the fact that she was a competent pilot and had been training under Peppy Hare, her father, original Star Fox member, for years-

"So, any previous flight experience?"

"Eh!?" Lucy had caught the new student off guard. Pablo startled, shoulders jerking back into perfect form, standing up straight and tall. Lucy stood at about 1.7spacemeters, but she would wager a guess that Pablo stood at around 1.8, just a bit taller than she. The slenderness of his frame, with slim legs and hips that tapered up into a somewhat broad chest, made him seem taller than he really was. Of course, with Lucy's ears, large and straight, she supposed her own height could be deceptive as well. This stranger only had small ears, black and rounded. He was also surprisingly well mannered, unusual, for a student that was just transferring into her class. Many of them liked to push her buttons, knowing she was Peppy Hare's child, and she had to fight back until peace was brokered. This was a welcome change of pace. "Ah, Pablo begs your pardon. Pablo was surprised! Yes, yes, plenty of previous flight experience under Pablo's belt!"

"Oh, really?" That was surprising! Most of her students were fresh out of secondary school, dipping their toes into the wide world beyond! Her course in astrophysics was not for the inexperienced, but still! What was somebody with so much previous flight experience doing in her classroom, rather than in a Cornerian Defense Force ship, patrolling the space and stars for threats? "May I ask why you came back to school?"

"Oh, Pablo, er... Pablo, ehm. Wanted to continue his education! Yes, yes, Pablo fell into the flying line of work you see, but wants to get a degree! So that he can get a better job, since he has the fancy piece of paper to prove his background and his expertise! These companies these days, you are a smart lady, yes? They want the paper, the fancy signature that says you know how to tie your shoelaces, pah. Recommendation from jobs not enough, they want the paper! So the paper Pablo will get!"

"Oooohh, I see, you want to broaden your career options! How very astute of you. Where did you work before coming here? Maybe my father could vouch for you?"

"Well, tell me about yourself, sí? Who is Ms. Hare?" His question was genuine, his eyes sincere. His hand motion may have been a touch grandiose for her tastes, but it was so authentic in a way that made her giggle. 

"I would be surprised if you did not know who I was. At any rate, it is not as important as you are!" Teaching may not have been her preferred job, but she was still passionate about it, eyes beginning to glitter with excitement. If she couldn't fly with Star Fox, she would help them as best she could by putting new, talented pilots in CDF ships. A pilot that understood _how_ his ship worked would be all the better for it. "Who you are takes priority! How can I offer you teaching like you would best need if I did not know who you were? Who Pablo Coracity is?"

"Coracita."

"Oh, my apologies, Coracita."

"May we go and sit, please? Pablo's paws are beginning to hurt."

For emphasis, he began dragging one behind him in an exaggerated fashion, and this time, Lucy Hare outright laughed. What a card! Class clowns were welcome. It did bring some light to her normally dour, boring lectures, though she did have a line that was not to be crossed. Education and fun were not mutually exclusive, but there was a time and a place for play. "Yes, of course. Come, we're almost to my office, and we can talk more there. Your accent, are you from Papetoon?"

* * *

The conversation went in so many circles for what felt like hours as they walked to the other end of the university campus that Panther thought he might go mad. First this fake name that was so intolerably silly that he was surprised she didn't kill him on sight for the offense, now she was asking questions with an actual basis? Panther's acting skills were only so good. He could only lie so well. He could only make things up on the spot for so long before he began to tire of it, as pretty as Lucy was to look at. Every woman was Panther's type of woman, but Lucy Hare was... Chattery. _¿Ella sale mucho? No lo creo._

That was not his concern. His concern was keeping _her_ level of concern down, keeping her guard low. The less she suspected, the better. The more she was convinced he was an interested student, a concerned peer, the better. All he had to do was keep her talking as they went to her office, but by Lylus, was she observant. He hoped Star Wolf was in place. He needed them to be in place, because if he had to put on appearances for one more moment in this frigid Fichnia chill, he thought he might die.

* * *

 _What a lovely conversationalist! He'll go far here._ Far from the bitter thoughts of this morning, Lucy was quite pleased to have run about with Pablo for the day. Thankfully, it was a Sunday, no classes, and no planning for her to do! Though his arrival was somewhat... Odd. There were no other new students here today, she had only been informed she was escorting Pablo around two hours before she got there! Perhaps that was to blame for her dour mood. She would have to make it up to him later, she decided, opening the door to her campus office. It was off the beaten path, so to speak, in a building that was little used. Her tenure did not yet buy her a corner office, but it was well-loved and homely, if small. It was perfect for her and her needs, which weren't many, and best of all? It was close to the math building, where her class was held! She had never felt unsafe in this part of the campus, in fact, the isolation was what she preferred.

As she swung her door open, looking over her shoulder at Pablo, she realized a few things. This remote location was far away from help. Pablo was familiar because she had been hearing about him from her father. That, and the chest she just collided into, and the arms she was enveloped in, were not exactly 'friendly', nor was the cloth pressed over her twitching little nose.


	8. You Don't Know How to Open Doors

_Writing this ransom note is harder than I thought it was going to be. Toeing the line between bringing the entire CDF and Pepper down on my head and making it sound urgent enough that they cough up the money is difficult._

_My one solace is that Leon is bringing me coffee and helping me cut letters out of old magazines. He's also been extremely insistent that I ice this shoulder, and keeps switching out the rice bags and making me hold still so he can do it properly. Thank Lylus for him, I know he hates the cold. I didn't think I was so rusty that my shoulder would cramp after a mission._

_Panther has locked himself in his room and his making sure he's still 'charming' enough. Andrew hasn't left the dungeon with Lucy since dinner._ _I don't like that he knows what could happen to her. He shouldn't have to know that those things can happen to people._

_I'll have to do something nice for Leon later. Maybe he'd appreciate a new knife? I don't know. This ransom note has to be finished tonight so we can send it by morning. Just you wait, Corneria._

_Wolf O'Donnell, Log 2587, six years after Venom_

* * *

_plink. plink. plink._

"Hey, asshole!"

No response. _plink. plink. plink._

_"I know you can hear me, you're right there!"_

Nothing. Not a thing, not even a blink from her 'warden'. Lucy sighed. "You won't say anything until I be polite, will you?"

"No. I don't respond to namecalling."

"But you are an asshole." _plink. plink. plink._

 _Pure. Silence._ Fine. If he was going to be this way, Lucy would play ball. 

"Your inkwell fell over, my most illustrious _Lord Andrew_."

"Wh- Oh, hell!" Andrew finally moved, bending over off the stool he had been sitting on for hours at this point, and picked up his toppled writing supplies. The _plinking_ stopped. The inking didn't, as Andrew scowled and put his pen and ink away, opting instead to use a ballpoint. This was a balancing act of the gods, it was, his industrial sized clipboard sitting on his bent knee, one arm in a sling, the other arm holding a pencil. This... Was not how he had wanted to be spending his time. In fact his greatest desire, at the moment, was to be upstairs, working on the Wolfens that had gotten so damaged on the way out of Fichnia. That wasn't a good memory for Andrew, and he winced and cringed as he jostled his injured arm. This wasn't supposed to happen...

* * *

Wolf said that there were no _fully fledged_ CDF pilots here. Wolf had said this mission should be _EASY!_ Wolf had said this was in and out, a fifteen minute adventure! He hadn't spoke one single word about getting crammed into a closet, he hadn't said a word about getting rabbit kicked in the liver, he hadn't said a word about the squadron of CDF pilots that they had run nose-first into on the fight out.

That was the last time he ever trusted Wolf's intelligence agents about CDF movements, damned space ruffians. Probably just automatically told Wolf what he wanted to hear. Andrew's rage couldn't compare to Wolf's though, he knew that much. The crackle of his FM radio squawked to life as O'Donnells voice barked an order over the comms. **_"Bank right! Split! Initiate the fallout plan!"_**

"Don't mind if I do," Andrew mumbled, half to himself, half to the comms and his wingmates. He was talking to keep himself calm as the CDF squadron, likely spooked out of their own gourds, began to open fire onto the notorious space pirates they had just run face first into. _Okay, okay, standard formation numbers, four finger formation, that'll be twelve pilots. Probably new if they're going to Fichina. Can we take on twelve pilots?_

The resounding crash of a CDF fighter losing a much-needed wing to Panther's Zapper proved that answer. Yes. They could, he just had to believe that they could, they may have been out of the game, but these were Greenhorns! They couldn't compare to Wolf and Leon's tag team dynamics. When they weren't fighting Star Fox? Wolf and Leon could do a dance of death like no others, the Red Fang and Rainbow Delta flying straight into the rows of CDF pilots, causing them to scatter like flies from rotting meat. Of course, to further the confusion, Leon had dropped a Smart Bomb as a gift, sending the pilots scattering even farther apart, their CO no doubt shouting orders to terrified newbie pilots who didn't know port from starboard. The perfect distraction for a getaway.

Panther, as they had discussed in the bar if things went south, had taken up a position right on Andrew's tail, guarding him from incoming attack, and convincing any CDF pilots that had split this direction that it was a poor choice. Andrew's Wolfen, lovingly referred to as the 'Wolfen One and a Half', or just 'Half and Half', carried the most precious cargo of all. A trussed up, silenced, a n g r y Lucy Hare. Was carrying somebody in the back of a Wolfen an intelligent idea? No. He had wired life support back there and made sure to strap her in as best he could, without wasting too much time, but still. Getting shot would be b a d, especially if it punched through the hull. This modified Wolfen could barrel roll like a Wolfen II, and had decent shields, but it wasn't anything Andrew wanted to roll the dice on. Not at all.

It was beginning to look like he wouldn't have to. Wolf weaved, rolled, and shot an EMP grenade directly into the still-panicked CDF fighters, now firing indiscriminately towards anything on radar. This chaos was perfect, as it allowed Andrew to hit the stealth switch on his Wolfen and disappear into what seemed to be thin air, without anybody being the wiser. Now it was merely Panther at his right, chaos at his left, and open space before him. That's what he thought, anyways. 

Leave it to chance to shoot him. Leave it to fate to nail him with a hit. Leave it to a CDF Greenhorn with a finger up his nose to spray and pray at Panther and pelt the side of Andrew's Half and Half with twin lasers, leaving burn marks in the hull and jolting him, making his shoulder produce a sickening cracking noise from the harsh slam of his body against the hard glass of his cockpit. His distress must have been clear over the comms, if Panther's snarling and darting for the offender were any indication. All Andrew could do? Floor it, as hard as he could, to the meet up place, thousands of miles off. Star Wolf would be fine. They would catch up.

Sending the unprepared and uninitiated to their demise through pure hell-raising tactics were what they did best, after all. They were Star Wolf. They were unstoppable.

* * *

Not as unstoppable as they would have liked to think, however. Andrew had waited for an hour in their arranged meeting place, checking on Lucy every ten minutes to see if the chokehold and chrloroform had worn off. Whatever Wolf had given her, and he suspected it wasn't just that, had worked. Chloroform wouldn't produce instant effects, not without something else being administered, but how Wolf had obtained the substance, and what, exactly, it was, was a mystery to him. Not that he needed to know, his only job was keeping her upright so her tongue wouldn't fall back into her airway and choke her to death. A high stress job, for somebody who hadn't flown in years.

Eventually, his team had come back. Wolf had sustained some minor injuries to his Wolfen, a few smoking laser holes in the wings, but Panther and Leon were unscathed. Leon was shielded from anything save for a nuclear fallout, and Panther, well. Panther was just the least rusty of them all, much to their chagrin.

After that? Everything had gone smoothly. They had returned home, been checked out by the medic (who, at the moment, was Leon, as nobody else was as dexterous or experienced as he), and shipped off to their respective tasks. Wolf and Leon were working ransom note and figuring out a price, and Panther and Andrew were to 'escort' the now lucid and Lucifer-fueled rabbit to her new holding tank. Sargasso's jail was made for drunks, brawlers, and people that even lifetime criminals wanted nothing to do with. You had to fuck up _p r e t t y_ bad to end up in Sargasso's prison.

Panther almost got shoved in himself, with his sour attitude. A man of lavender languages and pure charisma, flirting with anybody he could get away with. Yet it never seemed... Crude, or crass. Never overdone, never repeated. That was just the type of person he was, refined, elegant, and ready to throw down at a moment's notice. This mood swing was one Andrew had not yet experienced, not even when Panther had been turned down flatter than the blades of Leon's own knives. The grumbling could have been attributed to Panther getting to carry the legs of Lucy, though, as Andrew vehemently denied the very thought of ever stepping within range of those demonic thumpers again. His gut still hurt from the first kick, hours before! 

Settling Lucy in was, thankfully, a little easier, as she calmed down once she was sat and untied, though Panther kept a strong grip on her wrists while Andrew crouched to undo the knots around her ankles, taking painstakingly good care to sit to the side, rather than the front. After that it was much like releasing an animal into the wild, they backed up, Andrew stood at the door, ready to slam it. Then all at once, at a silent count, Panther released his grip upon the hare and hauled ass out of the cell, right as the pink lapine leaped to her feet and whirled around, ready to dish out some payback.

Fortunately for the intrepid pilots of Star Wolf, and for wildlife biologists everywhere, the release was successful, because Andrew had done his job. Lucy's roundhouse landed on the bars of her cell door, resulting in a clang that hurt her foot, and the ears of all involved. At least the jail was empty, otherwise there might have been an objection from the usual crowd, but Sargasso had been on it's 'best' behavior as of late. The promise of money hanging in the air, charging it's inhabitants with dreams of progress, of moving forward from this deadlock they'd been in, had kept them quiet as church mice. If church mice drank the sacramental wine and gambled with leftover crackers.

That was how Andrew had come to be here, alone. Panther had left, bemoaning his 'ruined' clothes (which, in truth, were merely a little dusty) and absolutely shredded sense of self-confidence (that was a blatant lie). However, he had, mired in his unending, dramatic grief, brought Andrew a stool, a bowl of vegetable stir fry from 'Chef' Leon, and his clipboard, inkwell, and pens. Fate bless Panther, he may have yowled his grievances to the stars, but he was a valued member of this hodgepodge family.

* * *

Another lance of pain through his arm brought Andrew back to the present, having finished his session of spacing out, and he shook his head. "Don't call me Lord Andrew."

"Why? You don't like it?" Lucy sneered at him through the bars. For being raised on Katina, a breadbasket of good manners and polite social etiquette, she could be a _brat._ Though, Andrew supposed, so could he. He had been, a long time ago, but he liked to think he was better behaved now. At least better behaved than the hare who was trying to push his buttons, and succeeding.

"No. I don't. Nobody has called me 'Lord' since the Lylat Wars."

"I think I just found your new nickname, milord."

"Do you want something to eat?"

"Huh?" _Abrupt, but, that got her,_ Andrew thought with a triumphant smirk on his face, setting his clipboard and pen aside in favor of leaning over his lap, good elbow on his knee, propping his head up so he could look at her. "You're... Asking me if I want something to _eat?"_

"Yes, _ma'am,_ I am asking if you want dinner. It's nearly eight. You should eat something, you probably haven't eaten anything since noon, and that was about, as I said, eight hours ago." The audible growl from Lucy's stomach proved that he was right about one thing. She was hungry, and it had been several hours since she had eaten. The shock and surprise on her face quickly wore off back into the displeased frown, metaphorically slamming the door in Andrew's face.

"You'd probably spike it with something. I'm not eating anything you give me." Lucy stuck her nose in the air, whirled around, and presented Andrew with her back, arms crossed over her chest in defiance. Sure, she was being difficult, but Andrew could get where she was coming from. Whisked away from home, to Sargasso, being confronted with a man that should have been dead. No wonder she was so... Testy, should he say.

"Lucy, if I wanted to spike anything, which I don't, I would have done it when you were already out." The snow monkey, tired of playing games with her, stretched his legs out, then switched which leg was on top in the cross of them. While he was at it, he leaned over and retrieved his clipboard. If she didn't play nice, he wasn't going to bother with her. "I'm only here to prevent anything from happening to you. I don't have to be here. Wolf didn't assign me here. This is out of the goodness of my spoiled little heart."

He wasn't truly drawing anything, nor was he looking at her. This was basic psychology, she would crack, eventually, intrigued at what he had to say, and talk to him again. Ears open, Andrew waited, and had to quell a snort of triumph when he heard Lucy's padding footsteps slowly approach the bars, and sit. Closer to him, ready to talk. "What do you mean, 'happen to me'?"

Playing this game was easy for him. His uncle had taught him how to manipulate people, through years of example. Andrew felt nothing for Lucy, nothing but dollar signs and pity. Why should he care? "We're in Sargasso. A den of criminal scum. I shouldn't have to explain to you what a pretty rabbit, by herself, in a dungeon, could encounter." The words were ice cold, and he suspected, had a sobering effect better than that of coffee. They did. He heard Lucy's breathing stop, just for a second, as she considered the true possibilities of what could come to pass, were she to be left alone down here. "There you go. See? I don't have to be here. I'm protecting an investment. Your father would tear through Sargasso as a one-man army if you came back hurt in any way. Aside from the chokehold, but Wolf tried to be gentle." He was protecting her.

The comment about the chokehold did make Lucy snort in amusement, which was his goal, and he allowed himself a small, satisfied smile. If he was going to sit down here with her, he wanted to be courteous and polite, rather than hurl insults. "It didn't feel gentle." A few beats of nothing passed, and then. "So... You came back from the dead. Interesting."

"Yes, quite. I was never dead at all. The CDF can be remarkably lazy about checking corpses, I suspect they saw the remnants of a Venomian fighter and assumed it was me. Thank fate for lazy, underpaid grunts, huh?" Lazy, underpaid grunts were the reason his arm was in a sling, but why split hairs with the hare? "While we're talking about CDF shills, would you like to tell me how a G-Diffuser works? Pretty please?"

The blatant audacity of the question made Lucy guffaw, shaking her head while she laughed at him. "What? Why would I tell _you_ how the pinnacle of Arspace Technology works? Besides, I'm not even sure myself."

"Really? A pity. I know the hydrogen fuel systems may have something to do with it, as pure hydrogen gas is pretty adamant about escaping the gravity of a planet. Has Belnito managed to apply that get up and go force to the entire ship...? With the graviton generator core, I suppose anything could be possible." Now he was simply talking to himself, sketching the basic design of the G-Diffuser system that sat in a Wolfen II. Quick as ever, Lucy hopped back into his monologue.

"I thought your ships already had G-Diffusers installed in them? What happened to that?" Blast her quick wit. Then again... Having somebody on the same intellectual level as he was could be. Nice. It was nice. He liked it. 

Pleased as punch to explain something, Andrew lifted a finger and waggled it in an exaggerated fashion, tutting as he went. "No no no, the Wolfen II's were. Well, you're an astrophysicist, you tell me the problems a ship that could fly like an Arwing but had no advanced gravity systems could pose!" He knew she would rise to such an occasion.

She did. She took the bait as eagerly as a bass. "Well, the G-Forces applied to the pilot would be enough to kill, not to mention a ship like the Wolfen II, a ship with that much raw technology crammed into it, would be hard for any sane man to control without some sort of advanced neural-linking. Which isn't my forte. But what does that have to do with a G-Diffuser?"

The excitement in the air of two nerds talking about something they loved was palpable, as Andrew dropped his clipboard, talking with the one hand left to him. To supplement this lack of appendage waving, Andrew's tail jumped in to help, dancing around as he produced a batch of word salad. "Aha, that was the problem! Belnito Toad, somehow, was one step ahead of my uncle when it came to the pilot safety. My uncle could produce a G-Diffuser of sorts, though it was rudimentary, and could put it on a ship! We could mince anybody in our way! But the stress on the pilot was so awful that we had to have a neural linkage system to fly it, resulting in my uncle crafting some virtual headsets for us! It was a brilliant move! Given more time, I'm sure he could have... Refined the, um. Design."

Andrew lost steam, noting how Lucy's expression began to change when he mentioned Star Wolf 'mincing' the opponent. _Of course, idiot. You nearly killed her father. Your uncle killed Fox's father._ He swallowed, hard, and then slid onto the ground to sit with her, picking up his clipboard and turning it to show her what he had drafted, a safe distance from grabbing bunny hands. It was a rough sketch, mostly, consisting of a disassembled Landmaster example, the G-Diffuser used in a Wolfen II, and a rough diagram of the size and shape of an Arwing's cross-section, along with rhetorical questions scribbled in the margins about where a system like that could fit. "See? We found the Landmaster in a CDF dump, and somebody hadn't completely destroyed the Diffuser, so I got a basic understanding of it. But this tank model won't fit into an Arwing, so I was trying to, erm. Downsize it. Problem is that it's difficult to do without having the... Original..."

He had ruined everything. Now she just looked upset, pulling a knee up to her chest, eyes blank and checked out of the conversation at hand. He had to salvage this, and fast! _Why do you care about what she thinks of you? She's the enemy. She's here to be ransomed. Fool._ "But it's okay, because I'm nowhere close! We won't have G-Diffusers for a long while, and we don't really care about killing anybody on Star Fox anyway!"

"You... Don't?"

Success! "No no no no no, you've got it all wrong! See, Wolf won't kill anybody on the team. We're ordered not to shoot to kill, just disable. He's got a lot of respect for them. _I_ have a lot of respect for them. I wouldn't shoot to kill anybody. Promise." Why would she even care about what he had to say.

Though, something he said did have an effect on her, as she picked her head up, and, tentatively, reached her hand out to him. "May I have the pen. And some paper?"

Now it was his turn to be startled, blinking and staring at Lucy for a moment before he got his act together. "Oh, yes, sure. Nothing wrong with giving a prisoner some paper, right?" He leaned over and grabbed a sheet off the stack, turning to present it to her with a quivering smile. "Here."

"My arm won't fit through the bars." Idiot.

"Oh, right, right, duh." Any attempt to salvage that would have been a moot point, so instead, Andrew merely did as he was told, passing the sheet of paper through first. Then, he dropped the pen into her outstretched paw. It was soft, not like his hands, rough from years of hard work putting Sargasso together.

 _Quit thinking about how soft she is and start thinking about how much she could be worth._ "Are you going to be okay here? I. Need to go fetch you dinner." Lucy didn't respond overmuch, merely offering him a quiet 'go ahead' as he stood to leave. As he did, however, her hand shot out and grabbed the end of his tail. She didn't yank, didn't claw or try to hurt him, merely captured his attention. "Oh, what is it?"

"Extra salt, please."

 _What was he expecting, some love confession? Why was he thinking about that in the first place?_ "Oh, can do. I'll be right back. Just holler if something happens, alright?" As he left, Andrew couldn't help but feel like something... Felt wrong. Like he had made a mistake.


	9. That's a Dead Kid

_I have been told to start keeping a 'diary', of sorts. I am unsure as to why I am meant to be doing this. Fox said it was to improve my understanding of the Lylatian language. Falco said it was so he could spy on my thoughts._

_I am not sure I will be able to get along with Falco as I had originally hoped. He does not seem overly fond of me. Peppy and Slippy, however, have been very welcoming! Slippy even gave me a new ship. It is not Cloudrunner. Cloudrunner is gone. Perhaps, Cloudjumper will be able to take her place._

_She still kicks like a mule, but we are getting along._

_~Krystal, Day 1 of record keeping_

* * *

Life for Star Fox had been incredibly slow, since rescuing Krystal from Sauria and beating back Andross a few years prior. Krystal had slotted into the team quite nicely, if Fox McCloud could say so himself. The Great Fox had been made to house plenty more pilots than the measly four (plus ROB) that had been living on it previously, so having Krystal around to take Peppy's place? This was fantastic, she didn't put a dent in the facilities at all, and she was a neat freak! For a ship of slobs (that being, everyone but the resident nag), having a second person around that could pick up after themselves was a treat.

Not that he could 'replace' Peppy Hare, in neatness or in flight. Fox could still feel the ache from where Peppy had given him a righteously angry flick on the back of his head for even implying that the seasoned veteran leave Star Fox and retire at last. Fox didn't think Peppy would ever retire, or that he even allowed himself to consider it as an option. Peppy wanted to fly, and Fox was loathe to tell him no. Peppy was his foster father, of sorts, the man that trained him to fly after his father was killed by Andross. It was a testament to the hare's strength that he could keep going, flying home after a wing had been torn off his Arwing, and then turn around and mentor his best friend's son. He was thankful every day for Peppy's paternal nature, even if it did include a lot of nagging.

The snoring sounds coming from the sleeping hare was also a testament to his age, as he seemed to be able to have a nap just about anywhere, at any time. Fox himself, seated at the main control panel, on the bridge of the Great Fox, was also getting a bit tired. It was late in the day, nighttime now, according to the chronometer that displayed across the front window, about 21:00. His feet were already propped up as the Great Fox cruised through the sky, heading back to Corneria to check the mercenary job boards again. What were the odds that he couldn't close his eyes, for just a few minutes, and...

_"INCOMING MESSAGE FROM : GENERAL PEPPER."_

Ah, of course, Murphey's littler known law : He who tries to nap shall find work he did not want. Thoughts of leaving Pepper on read danced through his mind, and yet, duty called. He dragged his hand down his face, grumbled a few choice words for Murphey, Pepper, and anybody that was listening, then sat up properly in his command chair. "Put 'em through, ROB."

 _"PUTTING THROUGH."  
_  
Salt of the absolute earth was ROB. Fox wasn't sure what to expect, a mission to take care of a group of rebel Venomian fighters? A pack of plucky pirates that needed a bit of punching to settle back down? 'What's the word, Big Bird-' almost fell out of his mouth, but, General Pepper stopped him short, with his clipped words and strained tone.

"There's been a kidnapping."

That took the legendary Fox McCloud aback, more than just a step aback, too. More like a few dozen steps, as he blinked and rubbed his eyes, pushing his chair farther from his controls and trying to make sense of what had just dropped out of the General's mouth and into his problem basket. At least it was mostly empty. "I, erm. Ahem. Repeat that, sir?"

"There has been. A kidnapping." General Pepper was leader of the Cornerian Army, and, now and again, the boss of Star Fox, when times were especially dire. For him to contact them on the line like this, this kidnapping must have been of extreme import, they weren't the local police after all! They were an elite mercenary team, five members deep!

Pepper himself looked like he was feeling the pressure that would require him to get Star Fox involved, his red hat askew, the fluff on his ears just a little unkempt, holding himself just a little less stately than normal. For a man that valued his appearance, this was highly unusual, even his medals weren't fully polished. Whatever sort of kidnapping this happened to be, Fox deemed it so important that the rest of the team couldn't wait and get the details after. He slid his hand, covertly, under his desk, and hit what was colloquially and 'lovingly' referred to as the 'panic' button. Only hit when times were severely bad, and when everyone needed to get to the bridge. Now. It was far louder, and far more effective, than a ship-wide comms system. What did it do? Firstly, it lit up the desks with a blinking red light, the likes of which woke Peppy up from his slumber with a snort, and caused him to fall out of his chair. Fox winced, but, Peppy had been through worse, he would be okay.  
  
What it also did was send a loud, piercing alarm system to every room's PA box, making the lights flash a brilliant crimson. Not even Falco's power-napping could withstand that, or at least, it never had before. Krystal's meditating and Slippy's tinkering were no match for it either, Fox knew the team, would be arriving shortly. As it was, Peppy had recovered from tipping back and falling out of his chair and was now standing upright, at attention, like a good soldier did. Fox had even gotten out of his chair to look at the screen, ears raised to listen to Pepper's instructions. "Where? What's this about, General?' He inquired.

The General, wasting no time to wait for the other members of Star Fox to arrive, went on with his presentation. He always made these announcements in front of a green screen, and this was no different, as he pulled out a pointer to indicate points of interest as he talked. Slippy called him 'Professor Pepper' in secret for this very behavior. "Yes, well, normally I would not bother you and your team with something as 'trivial' as a kidnapping," extra emphasis was put on the trivial, in an attempt to not make light of any sort of abduction. "However, this event is of extreme import, both to the Cornerian Army and to you. I'm going to put this bluntly."

That couldn't possibly be good.

"There has been a report of somebody previously 'confirmed' dead being sighted during the abduction. The mistake in the previous report, as of now, does not matter. Corroborating dash footage has been sent to Cornerian HQ, backing up the claim."

General Pepper stepped aside to let the footage play, shot from the nose of a CDF fighter. A standard issue starfighter, the Cornerian Fighter, it was clear that this pilot was inexperienced. No modifications were visible on the ship, which marked the pilot as young and still wet behind the ears, as the very nature of the Cornerian Fighters made them very easily customization for every possible strength, weakness, and situation a pilot may find themselves in. It was clear that the pilot of this ship was no longer living, based on the sporadic, shaky nature of the footage, and how quickly it was over. The footage started outside of Fichina, an unmistakable planet, based on the large swaths of white and blue over the surface of the globe, and the little green circles where Cornerian outposts had set up climate control. Fox felt, rather than heard, Peppy stiffen behind him at his desk. Fichnia. He wanted to ask the same question, the question that he feared to even think of, but Pepper wasn't yet done, and nor was the footage.

The video taken from the Fighter was artificially slowed, to hone in more easily on the details. Pepper paused the video, and played it, frame by frame, zooming in on a point on space. To the untrained eye, it was blurs of motion, red and grey, but Fox knew more than anybody else _exactly_ who those ships belonged to.

_"Wolf."_

"That, unfortunately, is not all." The footage zoomed in, and was enhanced, and again, and again, and again, until one could almost see the ships and pilots inside, were it not for the dark shading on the glass tops. Three Wolfens. The Black Rose, Panther Caroso's personal fighter, on the slower side but capable of carrying a Smart Bomb, and equipped with the Zapper. A deadly blue beam of electricity that could turn any starfighter into oatmeal without a second thought. The Rainbow Delta, Leon Powalski's ship, fast, sleek, and agile, with it's charge shot lasers, heavy shields, and two Smart Bombs, it was a master at hit and run tactics, which complimented the final ship, the Red Fang. Wolf O'Donnell's ship. The Red Fang wasn't fast, but it wasn't slow, and it could outrun or outgun almost anything, save for a MKIII Arwing. The Red Fang was modified to make it a purely combat fighter, good shields, heavy weapons, and an EMP grenade unlike anything else carried by Star Wolf pilots, when teamed up with the Rainbow Delta, they truly could make a red rain in the void of space.

Just before the final frame of the footage, which could be attributed to Panther's Zapper, as it charged up a shot, there was something out of place. Something terrifying.

Slippy and Krystal, in the silence, had managed to sneak inside the Great Fox's bridge without causing much of a fuss, both reporting, quietly, to their desks, like trouble-making students after a lunchtime reprimand. However, Krystal was the first to speak up. "I was told there were three members of Star Wolf?"

Pepper's voice was unnaturally grave as he replied, "Good observation. There were." The footage showed four ships. The Red Fang, the Rainbow Delta, the Black Rose, and another ship. It was different from the other three, not as updated, not as modern. Four red wings and two grey ones, in a star formation, with the cockpit sat in the middle. However, unlike a Wolfen II, it was somewhat larger, and whatever G-Diffusion systems it had were removed. It was an entirely new Wolfen. "This is a foe that was thought dead six years ago."

The screen changed, throwing mugshots onto the full display as Pepper disappeared. His voice still echoed as he rattled off the names. "Wolf 'Conrad' O'Donnell, bounty price 30,000 credits." Wolf's picture came up, one from when he was first discovered working for Andross, and a far more recent one, without his eyepatch, replaced with a blue and chrome eyepiece. "Panther Caroso, 20,000 credits." The first picture was also from years ago, Panther's first crime as a younger kitten. He was smaller then, clearly still in his kitten years, his first crime had been stealing from a flower shop. The second photo was also more recent, taken in a bar while he was with Star Wolf. "Leon Powalski. 10,000 credits." Leon's pictures were next. Like Wolf's, the first picture was from the Lylat Wars, the second, a very, very new photo. 

"That last one should be 30,000 too," grumbled Falco, slipping into the bridge with a little less grace and tact than Krystal and Slippy had before him. What had taken him so long? More than likely, actually getting dressed, as he was merely in trousers and a white shirt. All parties in the room (or on the screen) silently and collectively agreed not to pay Falco any mind, Falco included. The less people noticed him, the better.

Moving on from his interruption, Pepper finally got to the heart of the fourth Wolfen. The next picture to be displayed was that of Andrew Oikonny. Younger, of course, the Lylat Wars were six years ago, and the age that he should have been frozen at. Forever. The picture beside it was that of an artificially aged Andrew, who was now sporting a small amount of what could become a beard, given time, a few more lines around his eyes, and other, smaller details. The picture was clearly labeled as 'COMPUTER RENDITION : NO IMAGE AVAILABLE'. "We believe that the fourth pilot, given the analyzed flight patterns, style of Wolfen, and other traits, is in fact Andrew Oikonny, nephew of Andross Oikonny."

"He was supposed to be dead!" Falco piped up, never one to be able to shut his mouth, much as Fox would have liked him to at this particular moment. "The CDF paid us for the confirmed kill, we still have the invoice! What's up with people suddenly coming back from the dead, it-"

Fox cut him off. "What do you want us to do? We aren't exactly intelligence agents, we-"

"General Pepper." That was Peppy's voice, quiet, subdued, without much of the Katina lilt coming through due to how hard he was trying to control himself and his own emotions. "You're calling because it was Lucy."

A pin dropping in the room would have sounded like a gunshot. Everyone, General, psychic and flyboy, was quiet. Pepper shifted, adjusted his coat, and cleared his throat. "Yes. We have received intelligence that Lucy Hare disappeared from campus grounds at about 13:00, after escorting a new student about campus. We have been told this new student was likely Panther Caroso, as his face isn't as widely known yet."

Before Peppy could say anything, however, a CDF grunt ran onscreen. Ignoring this egregious violation in manners, protocol, and just common decency, the grunt snapped off a salute, offering a crumpled while piece of paper. "Sir. Note from the intelligence committee." With his job done, and not wanting to deal with the fallout of his actions, the grunt dismissed himself and hightailed it off the green screen, as Pepper composed himself and flipped open the note. A master of speed reading, even given his age, one could see his expression change. From anger, to a split moment of panic, to a deadly calm.

"Well?" Prompted the blue buzzard that still had yet to learn this was a time to be silent?

The old bloodhound had never felt his age as much as he looked before in his life. "It's a ransom demand from Star Wolf. They want 100,000 credits."


	10. Your Traits Aren't In The System

_We give Lucy back later today. Andrew's been with her all day, every day, protecting her. But he keeps getting quieter and quieter every time he comes upstairs to fetch something._

_My shoulder doesn't hurt anymore. Neither does my back. Leon is a saint, of that, I'm convinced. He's been in and out, constantly, checking on me. I gave him the override key to my room's door after about the fourth time._

_The only time he used it was to bring me a cup of tea ten minutes later._

_Log 2588_

* * *

Andrew's days had become a back and forth, a tug and pull, of sorts. A rhythm, a routine, a dance with predictable steps, even if it was only two and a half full days, and three full nights, that he had been doing it. All the same, it felt somewhat tedious, running up and down the stairs six or seven, or even eleven or twelve times a day, but the one good side was that he was getting in more than his fair share of exercise. More than usual. For somebody like him, that loved exercise, this was a very good thing.

The other good side was Lucy's smile. It was a pretty smile, her teeth were straight and white, even though her buck teeth tended to stick out unless she was concentrated on keeping them hidden under her lip. Every time she belly laughed, every time she threw back her head and howled with laughter, every time she forgot to cover her teeth once she was calmed and settled, Andrew counted it as a win. Seeing her grow comfortable with him made him happy, even if he couldn't place his finger on why he felt so pleased every time she was chuffed with something he said or did. He rarely had cause or occasion to do cartwheels, to show off the strength of his tail by hanging from anything within reach of it, to show off how powerful his grip on anything was by hanging off the bars of the opposing cell with just one limb. He liked to think she wasn't just laughing at his tricks, his ability to tumble and do all sorts of things, just to be polite. Andrew liked to think she truly liked watching him make a fool of himself, because she liked his company.

What Andrew _hated_ was _Harold._ Harold was a funny thing to hate, but he felt that he was justified in his hated of him. Who was Harold? Harold was not a who, but a what.

Harold was Leon's child, in a sense, if you squinted and accounted for Leon's cold exterior. Harold was the baby bromeliad Leon had acquired for the home, all those years ago, when Star Wolf first moved into Sargasso. Harold was no longer a baby. Harold was six feet tall, the thing Leon lived and breathed for, and constantly in the way. He had been recently repotted and moved to the front room, right beside the front door. This would not have been a problem, if it was not also the prime place to smack somebody Andrew's height in the face with a broad leaf. This was done, every time, without fail, that Andrew walked inside or outside. No matter which way Harold was turned, his life's mission was to broadside Andrew in the head with a leaf, and by fate was he going to do so. For the life of him, Andrew could not understand why Leon took such painstaking care of this plant, even going as far as to secure another, even bigger pot to replant Harold in at some point soon. This, also positioned close to the front door, he tripped over, cursing lightly as he hopped on one foot. "Leon, would you _please move your gardening materials to-"_

Oh. _Oh._ Had he interrupted something? Oh dear, how absolutely awful. Wolf and Leon were sitting rather close together, for a boss and a subordinate, at the kitchen table. The scaled hand over Wolf's was more than friendly, as was the other one on his back. How peculiar, Andrew had never seen Leon willingly touch another person unless it was dire. They were too close for comfort, too close for just friendship. Perhaps, just perhaps, Andrew had walked in on a moment that was not meant for his eyes. Quick as a flash, Leon shoved his chair aside, flicked out a nail file from a Swiss army knife, and began working on his claws, like touching Wolf wasn't what he had been doing at all. "I was checking on his shoulder. You know it was injured on Fichina." Wolf's one remaining eye was filled with absolute bloody murder, directed first toward Andrew, then, a weaker, diluted version towards Leon. All he did was grunt noncommittally and refuse to look at the lizard or the macaque. To deny it was to admit to something else. To agree was to imply he was _weak_ _._ A stalemate.

To comment any further on what Andrew may or may not have seen would have been folly, so instead, he approached the sink with his, and Lucy's, breakfast dishes and said nothing that could even be construed as 'snarky'. "So. Pepper agreed to the pass off for today?" He questioned, turning to lean against the counter and letting the hot water fall into the 'dirty' side of the sink. Leon had insisted they have two sinks, one for washing vegetables, one for dirty dishes. Wolf had agreed without a fight, despite the costs, and now Andrew suspected he knew why Leon could play Wolf like a fiddle for anything he desired. Including Harold's desires, too.

Debating the merits of coming this far and working so hard to keep Andrew alive versus the idea of throttling him, Wolf swallowed his pride and gave an answer rather than snarling. "Yes. We're passing her off in three hours. Get her ready and make sure she won't start anything. We'll be making the drop after I count the credits and make sure it's all legal tender." His piece having been said, Wolf left a somewhat stunned Andrew to his own, hopefully tidying devices, pushing his chair out from the table and walking off. Where was he going? Knowing Wolf, perhaps it was to sulk, as he disappeared into the bedroom hallway.

At the departure of his boss to his own quarters, Leon stood up himself, flexing his tail and flicking his knife back into... Wherever he kept it. Did his suit even have pockets? "I'm going down to the launch bay to prep the pod. Do as Wolf said." Leon's word was as good as Wolf's own, in terms of how strictly it was to be followed. The chameleon made his own exit, passing through the front door and off to what he had stated was the launch bay. A spark of resentment burned in Andrew's chest when Harold made no move to strike his master, merely patting the top of Leon's head with a leaf as he left. The snow monkey noted the tip of his tail had turned yellow by the time the door closed, silently fuming at the blatant favoritism that stupid weed showed for him.

 _Quit assigning personhood to a plant,_ Andrew scolded himself, bringing himself back to the real world and shutting off the water so he could quickly wash up the mess he had made. _Focus. This is a good thing. You can get back to work._ Something prevented him from being pleased about Lucy's leaving. Something that wasn't the 'stare' he imagined he was getting from Harold in the potted plant's corner.

* * *

The pass off was less than eventful, as 'uneventful' as a kidnapping pass over could be. At least, that's how it was shaping up to be, at the moment. Tensions were high, one could feel it in the swath of space, a far, far strip away from Sargasso. Wolf has planned this change-off perfectly, arranging a spot that was by the thickest part of Meteo, where asteroids collided, broke apart, and collided again, making it extremely difficult for any uninitiated CDF pilot to try and blast past the Star Wolf team and into the Meteo Belt in an attempt to find the rumored 'Sargasso'.

Of course, one would have to get through the cloud of space ruffians Wolf had brought with him as backup in order to do that. Some twenty odd strong, the roughest, toughest, and in some cases, dumbest pilots that Sargasso had to offer. The true bruisers of the colony, the best men to have in a fight, despite their hodgepodge of old and newer model ships, all with some sort of illegal modifications made to them, typically in the form of weapons that violated any and all treaties Corneria had made with itself to ban such 'barbaric' weaponry. Of course, rules and laws that applied to Cornerians didn't always find themselves being followed by everyone else in Lylat.

Not that four Wolfens would need such a thing as 'backup', it was more for show, Andrew thought, leaned back in his Half and Half, tapping his finger against his dash. He had made a 'stand-by' mode on his fighter long ago that would allow him to do anything but actually pilot, having locked onto the back of Panther's Wolfen and automatically calculated a safe following distance from it. It had allowed him to catch many a nap while in the cockpit, and now, it was allowing him to read a book while he waited for this transaction to be completed. If it could be called that. The Great Fox sat a ways away, out of range of the lasers on the pirates' ships, but too outnumbered to even consider an assault, silent fury radiating from it in waves like the ones from Solar. They were at a stalemate, Wolf and a few of his comrades, the smarter space pirates, having gone back to Sargasso to count the credits that had already been given up. Andrew knew, had been told, that they were going to add an extra hour to the transport time, so Corneria wouldn't know how far away Sargasso was from this spot. Wolf thought of everything, didn't he? Andrew turned his eyes back to his pages.

_It's the anonymity of war that makes the killing possible. When the nameless dead are named again on tombstone and on cenotaph, then they regain the identity they lost as soldiers, and take their place in grief and memory, the ghosts of sons and lovers. Perhaps-_

The crackle of his radio stirring to deliver a message made him cringe, and rock his cockpit's seat back upright, reading time disrupted irreparably. Another mod he had added, a seat that could move. He hated the fixed, static position of most starfighters, this was just easier on his legs and back. Not that he had to take care of them particularly well, he got plenty of exercise already, he wasn't one to lend himself to sitting idly by and let his physical strength wither. Closing his book with a snap and setting it aside, into a non-standard glovebox, he tuned in as the message finally came through.

_"Money was square."_

_"Let's give back the Hare?"_

_"Shut it, Panther."_

The joking did nothing to help his sour mood, though being interrupted in his reading was never something that pissed him off quite this badly. Why he was upset to see Lucy go, he wasn't sure. He could talk to anybody on Sargasso. Not that anybody much tended to enjoy his company, but he could, if he really tried, make plenty of friends in the eccentric types like himself that wandered the halls of the pirate colony. So what was it about Lucy's presence that he enjoyed so much? Why did he love- Not love, _like_ , to be near her? What enchanting quality was it that she had that made him adore making her happy? _You sound like a lovesick puppy. Stop it._

He hushed his own thoughts and kicked his Wolfen into gear, rolling a few times to the side to open up a path for Wolf, as Panther did the same, in the opposite direction. He knew what Wolf was bringing with him, and that he would need to get the hell out of the way. A grav-gun had been mounted onto the nose of the Red Fang, specially designed for the cargo it was carrying : a transport pod. The combination of these things wasn't something new, most of the time, however, the flat-bottomed, oval-shaped pods often carried critically needed supplies, like water, or food, delivered from carrier to carrier, or carrier to port. They were airtight, somewhat small, and made to be easily loaded into most cargo bays. That was the best thing they could put Lucy Hare in for a relatively short trip like this, supplied with oxygen, a light, and, as a last minute addition from Andrew himself, a bottle of water. Why he had stopped the loading of the Hare into her pod for something as small as a water bottle, before he came out here to parlay with Star Fox and the CDF escort, he didn't know. Maybe he had just wanted to see her again, make her laugh.

It hadn't worked, and Wolf was carrying the greyish, mint green pod to pass her off, holding up his end of the deal. An Arwing with a similar grav-gun had been deployed, and Andrew knew without thinking that it was Fox. Fox would put himself on the line, in the midst of a group of space pirates, to see an old friend delivered safely. That was who Fox was, who Fox had always been, ever since their days at the Academy together.

Now was not the time for memory lane. What prompted Andrew to unbuckle his seat, he wasn't sure, nor was he sure why he was so desperate to lean forward, uncomfortable as it was, as Lucy was taken by him. Wolf was below him, but he could just make out Lucy's frame in her pod, through the ring of glass around the top of it. It shifted, and moved, her large, expressive ears somewhat droopy. She was upset. He could almost see her turning, looking up at him, through the movements of her shadow. Just before she was out of his sight, her ears raised.

He dropped back into his seat, buckled himself back in, and slid as far down as he could go. He should be happy. Lucy was returned safely, without a scratch on her, and Star Wolf had been payed every credit it asked for. Why wasn't he happy? What had that Hare _done_ to him? 

Nothing he could dwell on. They had to get out before the CDF opened fire, once Lucy was passed off. He was lovestruck, not stupid.

He wasn't lovestruck at all. He wasn't anything.


	11. Keep It In The Family

_We passed Lucy off two days ago. Andrew still isn't acting right. I think the best term for it is 'pouty', though I'm no expert on kids._

_Can't really call him a kid like that now, he's twenty three, old enough to drink. But he's still young and dumb._

_I was young and dumb once. Maybe he'll feel better if I tell him._

_Wolf O'Donnell, Log 2590, six years after Venom_

* * *

Andrew still thought about Lucy Hare. More than he would have liked, to be frank. It had been two days, but he just felt... Wrong, without going downstairs to check on her. People tended to say that once you do something three times, it becomes a habit. That was it. He was restless and just plain weird-feeling because it had been three nights straight that he had napped on and off down in Sargasso's jail with her, and it was weird to sleep in his own bed again. That was all. It was just the odd, terrible feeling of shattering a well-broken-in habit.

"Okay, kid, enough pouting."

Andrew looked up from his nearly untouched plate to meet Wolf's eyes, who, as if he would let himself lose in a competition as petty as nutrition, had cleared his plate before the rest of Star Wolf. Leon had only just sat down with his own food, and the scowl on his face was so powerful it nearly dealt psychic damage. Wolf, perhaps due to the metal in his head, or his distilled energy of 'I don't give a fuck', didn't bat an eye at the murderous stare. Not that he had an eye to bat, his attempts at winking were atrocious, and there had been many over the years before he finally gave up. "I'm not pouting."

"Panther thinks you are pouting," replied the titular Panther, through a mouthful of dinner. Leon's cooking was a service rendered out of his own heart, not out of payment, and all who lived under this roof were aware of how boned they would all be if he suddenly decided the patrons of his impromptu restaurant were too ungrateful to deserve it. "You have not played cards once with him!"

"I just haven't been feeling up to it! Alright?" Well, now he was just being blatantly attacked! In his own home! He had helped build this place!

Leon piped up, looking up from his own plate, which the other denizens of the table seemed to be refusing to let him enjoy. "Don't antagonize the boy, Panther." His tone prompted Panther to swallow and sit up straight, like one might at the sight of an approaching waiter. Satisfied with the response, and the assertion of his authority, the chameleon went back to his food. Wolf, completely fed up with the nonsense at the table, pinched the bridge of his nose and growled. 

"Look, Andrew. We gave her back, you don't have to keep being on edge, Star Fox can't find Sargasso. Nobody can. I've been running scrambling signals for months, any sort of radar is gonna register Sargasso as a big lump of rock. You don't have to be so... Jumpy, anymore."

Jumpy. That was it. He was just jumpy! Eager to latch onto any word that wasn't 'heartbroken', Andrew sat up a touch straighter and stopped picking at his food, which was drawing the ire of the chef the more he tore it apart instead of eating. "Well, I'm sure you get jumpy too! Like after you left Venom, you had to be stressed then."

Whoops. Bad subject. The boss of Star Wolf grimaced and shook his head, letting his hand fall to the table. He hit his fork against his plate on the way down, creating a clang that startled Panther, so absorbed in his meal was he that he had ceased to pay attention to everyone else. Now everyone's attention was on Wolf, and with such a question, how could he leave the air hanging? "Yeah. Yeah, it was a little touch and go after we left." The canine looked to the lizard, who looked back, and then proclaimed, with an air of derisiveness,

"I'm not fetching you your drink this time. I just cooked dinner. You go get it, you have working legs."

The only one in the world allowed to speak to Wolf that way was Leon, and he was going to do it when he felt that Wolf was, as he would put it when alone, 'Acting like a child'. Suitably abashed, and even more annoyed, Wolf hauled himself from the table and wandered off to go and raid the liquor they kept in a low cabinet. Low for the sole reason of making it a pain in the ass to get to, especially if you were six feet tall and named Wolf. The clinking of bottles as Wolf looked for his favorite vice accompanied his voice, somewhat muffled by wood and glass. "I had to go and pester my sister. It wasn't pretty."

"You had a _sister?!"_ That was news to Andrew! The great Lone Wolf had a sister? A blood relative, from the sounds of it? "Why didn't you mention this before?!"

Having found a suitable cure for life's current ailment, Wolf yanked out a dusty bottle, blew on it, and got a glass down from the cupboard. That was at a more reasonable height for the entire team, save Leon. "We didn't get along well."

* * *

The bassline was so powerful Wolf could hear it from the parking lot, through the hull and glass of his, admittedly shredded up, Wolfen. Now that shock had worn off, he had become intimately familiar with the fact that he hurt like a bitch, his head and missing eye especially. Taking just a moment of rest, and a moment to mentally and physically prepare himself, he leaned his head back, staring up at the stars above him. The planet Zoness could be wonderfully beautiful, at times, and night was one of them. When the lights of the city powered down, and one could see the endless expanse above, full of adventure, romance, war...

War came knocking on his window in the form of Dengar, beating a fist on the outside of his hull. "Hey! Are you coming out or not?! I want in!" Of course he would want in.

Zoness was also home to clubs. The mostly watery surface of the planet made it an excellent vacation destination, before Andross had destroyed it and polluted it a few months ago. It was only a few days since his defeat, and the ache in Wolf's head couldn't compare to the one in his chest, deep and hollow. _I promised I would keep him safe._

 _Then again, promises were never something us O'Donnells were good at._ "I'm coming, Dengar," came his irritably, snippy response, popping open the hatch on his Wolfen and standing. His body protested this disturbance of rest, but frankly, he had bigger concerns than the whining of his legs. However, the waiting hands of Leon were not unwelcome, as he planted his boot into them for help getting down. "You aren't. Get back in your Wolfen." The last thing he needed was Pigma causing a scene, this place was a heavily armed one, due to a history of violence. He knew the source of it, too. That was what he was after.

 ** _"What?!"_** Pigma squealed in indignation, so loud you'd think he was shot instead of being ordered to be lazy. The sound of it made Wolf cringe, pushing his already short temper over the edge.

"Shut the fuck up and do what you're told!"

The ferocity of the reprimand hung in the air, and neither Pigma nor Leon knew how to respond. The beat and vibe from the club they were standing outside changed as the song switched, and Pigma finally snorted. "Feh. Fine! I hurt too much to really enjoy it anyway."

He stomped off like a pissy toddler missing his nap, and Leon slowly sidled up to Wolf's side. "I will return to my Wolfen as well, if you-"

"No. You come with me. I need somebody to watch my back. You can do the job of two people, freaky little lizard." The lupine patted said lizard lightly on the shoulder, and it seemed to please Leon, pleased him so much that he grinned. To anybody but Wolf, the sight of his rows of sharp teeth would have been terrifying. To him? They were reassuring.

"As you wish."

* * *

The moment Wolf stepped in the door, Leon vanished from his side. That was good. He expected that, he wanted the lizard to patrol the tables and the floor, watching for the first signs of trouble. He had another destination in mind. This was her club. She'd been coming here since she got her first fake ID. He had been here many, many times, when he still lived with her. It barely took a few minutes of looking before he spotted who he was looking for.

Her tastes hadn't changed a bit since he last saw her, all those years ago. Of course, she had gotten just a touch taller, filled out just a little from her teenaged years. Her style was still, as their father had described it, 'like a flapper', short denim shorts that only came down to about her upper thigh, a crop top that was ripped at the bottom. A black belt studded with spikes, silver piercings down the side of her right ear, and the thing that had pushed their dad off the most: Dyed fur.

Reds and purples and bright neon blues, bedecked on top of a dark grey pelt, Sophronia 'Conna' O'Donnell was a rave all her own, moving to the beat of her own drum in life, moving to the beat of the music in a crowd, carving out a space to dance on her own while still meshing with the group, though she stood above almost all of them. Purple spots ran up and over her ears, complimenting her bright lavender eyes, while a streak of white went down her stomach and along the inside of her thighs. There was no mistaking his sister, and there never was. If her fur didn't give her away, it was her smell. He could recognize his sister no matter how she looked, his lack of an eye made his other senses sharper. However, it didn't mean his common sense was any better. He felt like he was floating as he approached her, shouldering his way through the crowd to reach out and touch her shoulder. "Hey, Sophie?"

That was an unwise decision. In the thrum of moving bodies, everyone in their own worlds orbiting the sun that was the DJ's nest, nobody would really notice if somebody got stabbed, and Wolf cursed himself for being dumb enough to startle Sophronia by touching her. Lucky for him, he knew her method of choice, and shot his hand down to grab hers, as it came up to try and knife him. She was still violent, at least that hadn't changed. Soph whirled around to snarl at him, but her snarl dropped off her face as shock replaced it, her grip loosening on her knife. She made it herself, Wolf knew that. He'd done a little research on what she was up to before he came to see her.

"Hey, Soph. Been a while."

**_"Conrad?!"_ **

Wolf cringed, which made his face prickle with pins and needles of pain. Did she really have to say his name that loudly? In front of a bunch of teeneyboppers, pulling themselves out of their own little worlds to look at what was happening around them? "Yeah. It's me. Can we get off the floor? I've gotta talk."

Blinking the haze of some sort of illicit substance from her eyes, Sophronia backed off a step, prompting Wolf to release her. Dropping whatever she was smoking onto the floor and stamping it out, she rolled her shoulders and looked around. "Uhh. Yeah, little man. Yeah. Sure." Only Soph could get away with calling him 'little man'. O'Donnells were tall as a general rule, but the fact of this matter was that Sophronia stood a little bit taller than he did. He was barely 1.83space meters, Sophronia stood at about 1.905 spacemeters, and stuck out like a sore thumb in most crowds. Especially when she put her hands on Wolf's shoulders and squinted, studying him up and down. He let her, she was bigger and perhaps stronger than he was, especially in his current state. Which was to say, beat to hell. "C'mon. Let's find a booth, little man."

* * *

"I wondered if it was you that fell in with Andross," Sophronia said at last, after getting the story of the rebellion from the outer worlds out of Wolf. She was stirring her cocktail with a small black straw, the glass looking comically small compared to her larger frame. She was muscled, Wolf noted, more muscled than even he was, a feat all it's own. He liked to think he could beat her in an arm wrestling competition, but now was not the time to talk about such things. At last, his sister sighed, stopped playing with her drink, and met his eyes again. "Rebellion's over, Conrad. You lost."

"Can you stop calling me that?" He groaned, putting his elbows on the table, head in his hands. His pains had become more acute the longer he sat down, and he knew Leon had to be in just as much pain, if not more. He wanted to take something for this pain in his head and shoulders, secure somewhere to lay down, and perhaps sleep for a year or two. No more, no less. "Look, Soph. I..." He couldn't say the words, so he switched to another subject. He was not good at begging for anything, and he wouldn't beg her for help. "Have you talked to dad recently?"

"The hell would I talk to him for, style advice?" The other lupine snorted, then gave a mean-spirited chuckle or two. "Nah. Far as I care he can rot in the hell he created." Without waiting for comment, she picked up her drink, slammed it, and set the glass back down on the table with more force than it probably should have been made to endure. "Since you won't say it yourself : I'm guessing your lodging just went up in smoke?"

Always quick-witted was she, despite how much of a meathead she liked to make herself out to be. Wolf nodded, and scratched at the table with a long, white claw. He should ask Leon for a file later. "Mm. Me, and my squadmates. So, three people." _It should have been four,_ his thoughts echoed miserably. _It should have been four._

Just like him, Sophronia scratched the table with her claws. Hers were painted, likely by herself, black as night and just as strong. Despite his exceedingly sour mood, Wolf couldn't help but smile a little bit at the sight. They were too much like one another for their own good, and that was what he was banking on. Their similarities. It paid off, as she blew out a breath, leaned back, and scratched the back of her neck. "Sure. I can house you guys for a bit, I gotta get home anyway," she diverted the subject, checking the comms watch she had on her wrist that displayed the time. 01:00. "I got a client coming buy to pick up some goods. You and your boys can stick around, but I've got _one_ rule for you jokers," she growled, leaning all the way forward until her ribs hit the table, pointing a menacing claw at Wolf's throat. "I can't have _any heat_ coming down on my operation, the CDF's been going hogwild with arrests lately and business is just starting to boom. You start making scenes, and you are all out, you understand Conrad?"

"When have I ever made a scene?" Wolf asked, just as Leon showed up at his side, dragging a moderately drunk, angry, and likely far poorer Pigma by the collar. With a dry expression towards Leon, that the lizard matched, Wolf followed up with "It's not me you have to worry about, Soph."


	12. Windmill

_I don't know what the fuck to do. I've lost Andrew. Andross is dead. My hideout is gone, my supplies are gone. I have nothing to fall back on, nothing but my sister. It's only a matter of time before I fuck that one up too._

_Lylus, help us all._

_Wolf O'Donnell, Log 446, three days after Venom_

* * *

After cleaning up Pigma, bullying back the credits that he lost from other bar patrons, and then hitting the metaphorical 'space' road, Wolf was so tired he simply wanted to drop. His body hurt. His head hurt where he had ripped off the implants Andross had insisted on putting in him so he could fly the Wolfen II in combat. His heart hurt, of all things, seeing the empty spot at his flank. He couldn't fly in a four finger formation anymore, it was simply a triangle, of sorts, following Sophronia back to wherever she called home. It wasn't far, if you didn't consider leaving the atmosphere to be 'far'. It was, of course, hidden away in the reaches of space, a stone's throw from Zoness, an abandoned refinery, still perched on the asteroid it had mined out hollow. Wolf, suddenly, was feeling a little less good about following his sister to the ends of space.

_Stop it. You have nowhere else to go. Nobody else to trust. Do not doubt her._

His gut feeling was correct. After doing a flyover to ensure nobody unexpected was awaiting Sophronia, she parked her Wolfen, and, without any sort of life-support, jumped out of it. Wolf just about screamed, he would have, if he had the energy to do so, but after a moment of exasperated panic, he noted that his sister was not yet dead. In fact, she was very much just fine, shutting off her beater of a starship and twirling her keys around her finger. Sharing a raised-brow look with Leon, and then Pigma, he shrugged his shoulders. _Well, I haven't died yet._

Praying to Lylus this wasn't an elaborate murder plot set up by whoever even knew, at this point, Wolf pushed up the hatch on his fighter and jumped out. Upon landing, he realized a few things. One, the gravity generator on this mini-planet was like Corneria's. Two, his legs hurt even more than he had been willing to pay attention to. Three, the atmosphere was completely breathable, if you didn't mind the smell of smoke and metal. Taking a moment to compose himself, and rub his poor, aching knees, Wolf stood up and motioned to his wingmates to come on out. It was a safe, if somewhat unorthodox, home base for a space pirate.

"You coulda warned me, Soph," growled the extremely irritated lupine, coming up behind his sister, from a safe distance. Sophronia was fighting her keyring, cursing, somewhat crosseyed, and most certainly a little bit drunk. Rolling his eyes, he made a grab for the keys to get the door himself, but Soph pushed him away with her foot as she singled out the key that may or may not have belonged to the 'front' door of the factory, a deep blue color. It was clearly a ring of keys meant for an industrial complex like this, but how Sophronia got her paws on them... Wolf didn't want to know. He didn't ask, as Pigma and Leon approached and flanked him, having decided he wasn't crazy and that this was, indeed, safe.

"Gravity generator and oxygen pump still work on this planet! Wicked cool, huh?" Sophronia grinned at him and put the key in the lock, twisting it without even looking away from him. She slammed the handle down, kicked open her door, and then slapped her right hand onto a control panel right beside the entrance. That turned off the alarm that only got to shriek a single shrill note, and, flicked on the lights. This was where Sophronia made her livelihood.

At one point, this forge likely produced thousands of weapons for CDF troops, but since the resources had been mined out of this asteroid? It was left to it's own devices, and Sophronia had moved in. Illumination hit rows of worktables, once made for underpaid workers, now all made for Sophie, with various projects laid out upon them. Half-finished knives, which Leon was drawn to, glittering blasters that attracted Pigma, and of all things, a sword. The air was clean, if somewhat metallic-smelling, and a large fire still burned in the industrial furnace at the other end of the hall, kept eternally running both to heat the place, and to allow her to melt down the metal that was still present in the planet. _Corneria must have abandoned the place after they found Macbeth._ He didn't get to think much longer, as Sophronia cranked up her stereo system and metal guitars and strings played in his ears, causing him to put his hands over them until she turned them down. Background noise, he was sure, his sister never liked the quiet. Looking up, Wolf saw a large, dark brown sign hanging from two chains. In large silver letters, her brand's name was proclaimed : 

_**RUN WITH WOLVES** _

_What else would it be?_ Wolf shook his head and shut the door behind him. Sophronia had wandered off to pick up the sword, holding it up to eye it. How she found anything wrong with it with how drunk she had to have been, he wasn't sure, but whatever flaw she saw, she decided to solve with a rag, a bottle of something Wolf wasn't going to ask about, and a vigorous rubbing. Picking it up again and holding it up to the light, closing her eye, and making an L with her thumb, she deemed her handiwork complete. "Welcome to Casa de Sophronia," she grinned to anybody that would listen, crossing the room and placing her sword on a table. Lifting a brand from the fire with her other paw, she imprinted her symbol into the leather at the end of the grip. Having followed her closely, Wolf saw what it was : a wolf's head. Now she was just begging to be identified as an O'Donnell, as she picked up the sword and hefted it in her hand again, having poured water over the brand to cool it and make the sword tolerable again.

"I thought you were laying low after you left."

"That's for squares. I found the freedom to do what I wanted that I never got at home : Make Corneria pay." Oh, yes, his sister had always loved anything that could set a fire, cut something, or explode, and what she loved to do more? Sell it to people that hated the planet as much as she did. Sniffing and looking over her brother's head, which he did not appreciate, she noted Leon observing a pocketknife, having picked it up in his hands and started to turn it over, admiring the handiwork and craftsmanship. Or at least, what Wolf deduced was a pocket knife, knowing his sister it could've been a miniature blaster.

"Hey, skinny thing, you want that?" She called, startling Leon half out of his wits, so badly he nearly dropped it. Stunned into silence was not a good look for him, but he merely turned pink around the edges of his head and nodded. "It's yours, then," Soph declared. "I was just gonna sell it, but it's better if you take it off my hands. Every man needs a knife, huh?" Flouncing back across the room, spinning around Pigma, Soph whacked a cloth dummy that had clearly seen better days, bleeding fluff, several large slashes having been sewn together. Mister Stuffwell needed another operation, as the slash struck home, ripping another gaping wound in that poor survivor. Concluding the new rip satisfactory, Soph wandered back to the front of the room and picked up a black scabbard with a red strap, sliding the sword home. "You kids can sleep here, I guess, but like I said, I got a business to run-"

Speaking of business, a knock at her door brought her attention. Picking up a large blaster with an even scarier knife at the end, Soph put the sword down and leaned down to tap at her control panel. Wolf noted, with emotions muted due to his exhaustion, that Leon and Pigma both brought their attentions back to his sister. If she noticed or cared, she gave no indication, standing back up and waving at the bedraggled party to scoot. They did so with gusto, even Pigma moved with something approaching speed, hiding around the corner of the wall Wolf had leaned up against, right next to Stuffwell. Poor bugger, first he was injured, now he had awful company.

The she-Donnell opened her door, revealing a striking figure. A somewhat younger man, perhaps in his middling twenties, with a swagger and a stance that made Wolf want to punch him. A black feline, with small ears and a red rose in his hand, and of course, a cocky grin on his face. Whoever he was, Wolf got the desire to strangle him. Perhaps it was just the stress of the day that made him so aggressive, but his voice pissed him off even more.

"Madame Sophronia! Panther is delighted to see you in such good health!" A pickup line to get in the door that was opened for him, the man swaggered inside. Thin and lithe, with no real muscle to him, Wolf got the distinct feeling he could snap the man over his knee. Perhaps he didn't have to, as his sister whirled the man around with one hand and clapped him on the back with the other, leading him away from the hiding space refugees. Wolf knew how hard those slaps could hurt, even when they were friendly in nature, like this.

Sophronia leaned back on her worktable, picking up the sword and presenting it to the stranger. "Good to see you, bud, I was looking forward to sending this beauty off. She's sharp and polished, just finished her up." As the man reached out to take it, Soph pulled it out of reach. "About that advance payment you promised...?"

The stranger, caught in the act, tuttered and reached into his pocket. "A smart woman. Panther likes that." Producing a small bag of credits, he held them out, and Soph took them immediately. Casting a glance inside, she nodded, and put the sword back in his reach, which he eagerly took.

"Great. Now get the hell outta here, don't you worry about the rest of the money. I'll hit you up when I need the cash. Stay safe, the CDF is going bonkers." She got up and began pushing the odd man to the door, one hand protectively, yet firmly, in the center of his back. "I really can't take a dinner date as payment, I don't really consider 'dining and dashing' a date. Stay outta Venom, stay the hell outta Corneria, and shoot the bastards down, alright? Take care!" With that, she shut the door on the stuttering, stammering cat, locked it, and sighed, sliding down the wall.  
  
"Like I said. Business."

* * *

"Your sister sounds super nice, Wolf. Why haven't I heard about her?"

"That's the thing with us O'Donnell's, Andrew. We aren't nice. Not even to our own flesh and blood. We weren't there long."

* * *

As the days wore on, Star Wolf had worked itself into a regular routine. Sophronia had them help out around her forge, running materials back and forth, testing new models of very illegal (by Corneria's standard) weapons, blasters without a built-in cooldown, all manners of knives that weren't authorized for civilian carry, though nothing as grand as the sword. That, Wolf had been told, was a special order for a man in the midst of the Papetoonian Clan Wars, recently stoked back into a roaring flame with Andross' downfall. Wolf couldn't blame the planet whatsoever, Andross had promised to turn it into a bread basket that could rival Katina. Now, the only thing it had left to fight over was sand and oil, and with Corneria buying it for less and less, it was a matter of time before the Clans had to come together and let the Lylat's 'capital planet' steamroll them too. Poor bastards.

"Hey," Soph snapped across the workshop to anybody who would listen, who this time, happened to be Wolf, seated at the wall, head tipped down, trying to have a nap. She had been shoulders deep in a project, hammering away at another blade, until whatever it was this time caught her attention. With her general style of clothing, Wolf could see the muscle she had put on since they had last met from where he was, thick shoulders betraying years and years of this kind of work. Her ventilation system was top notch though, he could hardly smell the smoke and iron. "Where's Pinkie?"

"Pigma?" Another habit of hers. Nicknames. Leon, Pigma and himself had become skinny man, Pinkie, and little man, respectively. Nobody liked it, but nobody fought it, since they were all still injured, and quite frankly, she looked too tough to fight. Every O'Donnell was a warrior. "He said he was going back to the club to gamble. He's probably going to lose all his money and then come crying home."

The little piggy did not, in fact, go 'wee wee wee' all the way home. Rather, he turned up at the door as soon as the words passed Wolf's lips. Wolf knew it was him, his Wolfen chugged like an old truck, he never took good care of his ship. Not even when it was new did he give a moment of thought to preserving it's worth. Instead? He let it accumulate trash and dirt, and let odd sounds go unchecked for weeks. Wolf didn't have the energy to snap at Pigma for coming in the door so loudly, slamming it into the wall with a triumphant snort, nor did he have the mental fortitude to ask him why he was so happy. Sophronia, however, was never one to play games.

"A little birdie told me you went out and made a fool of yourself."

"Eh?!" Not used to being addressed by anyone bigger and tougher than he was, Pigma threw his nose in the air and quickly pocketed his money, dropping his jacket by the line of hooks by the door. Usually reserved for blasters, but now made into a coat rack, because Pigma decided it was a better use for it. He didn't have the tact to shut his mouth when Soph put her project down, nor did he have the social skills to see that she was angry with him now. "Ahhh, don't worry about it. It's a good thing, I fleeced those suckers at the club, they didn't know how to play against somebody as good as me!"

No sooner could Wolf think enough to say "Pigma, that's not a-" _good idea,_ than was Sophronia already on him. She was fast, when she wanted to be, and her hard-knock life made her exceptionally strong. Perhaps even strong enough to lift Pigma up with both hands by the collar and put him to the door. _"Who did you fleece."_

 _"Gack!"_ Being manhandled by a woman was not something Pigma was accustomed to, nobody manhandled him at all! Ever! Especially not a woman! Once he recovered his composure and came to terms with his feet being off of the floor, he was much quicker to produce an answer, rather than a strangled cry of shock. "Just some punks, I swear!"

Rightfully, she didn't buy it, narrowing her eyes and hiking him up an inch higher. That increased the distance to about a foot, and nobody in the room liked that, not Sophronia, not Pigma, and not Wolf. "No CDF punks, right?"

"What do you think I am, stupid?!"

Satisfied with her interrogation, Sophronia dropped Pigma. The swine dropped to the floor with a yelp, falling right on his ass and watching, dumbfounded, as Sophronia turned her back and walked away from him. "Yes." Setting her sights on Wolf, she squinted, and lifted her lip to show her teeth. "I don't know what kind of punishment you dole out around here, but if this sort of shit happens again, you have to leave. I can't have any little kids with chips on their shoulders coming out here to get their money back. You take care of this buffoon," she ordered, tossing her head over her shoulder towards the pink fool in question. "And I'll keep this roof over your head."

Lifting his lip in response, Wolf glared at his sister, and then at Pigma, who was shrinking further and further to the floor. "Fine. Don't let this shit happen again, Pigma. You heard her."

* * *

"Trusting Pigma was the worst mistake I ever made."


	13. Close the Loop

_I got some intelligence from some of the old Venomian soldiers today. They found an old CDF outpost in the Meteo Belt, probably a mining facility that they shut down after they found out there was nothing useful in those asteroids. The life support was broken when they got there, but they said they've gotten it up and running. If I get out there with Pigma and Leon, I think we might be able to do something with that old outpost. At the very least, it's inhabitable._

_And it'll fit more than three._

_Wolf O'Donnell, Log 450, one week after Venom_

* * *

More days went by of working with Sophronia at her forge, and Wolf became comfortable there. He could tell Leon was too, he liked any warm place, and he liked knives. Sophronia had told him that if he wanted to sit at the furnace and sharpen knives all day, he was welcome to, and Wolf didn't think he had ever seen the lizard any happier. As Wolf's wounds began to heal, he couldn't help but notice that the pain in his skull never truly subsided, not even in his dreams. He could feel the dull pulse of it in his skull, the pain that ebbed and flowed, even in his dream world, the pulse that matched with his heart. It actually helped him pull himself out of a few nightmares, feeling the thudding inside his braincase and knowing that his reaction wasn't necessary, that his dreams were only dreams. For as comfortable as Leon and Wolf had become, however, there was another stick in the mud. One who could not be trusted.

Pigma. An avid hater of anything warm, the constant temperature in Soph's working rooms drove him outside to smoke far more often than not, and when he ran out of cigarettes to smoke, he would sit at the far end of the room and complain beside an open window. The flue system in Sophronia's abode (Wolf couldn't bring himself to call this industrial complex a 'house', no house had a garage that could fit three Wolfens and a beater starship,) was top-notch, so the only reason to open the window was to attempt to get cold air from outside to come indoors. Somehow, Wolf couldn't bring himself to feel too terrible about Pigma's plight, but perhaps it was because of his sister. Older than he was by two years, he had always been close to her, before they lost contact in teenhood. Now, he had the bond again, a pack bond that he thought would be gone forever.

With that bond came scraps, play scraps, like the type they had as puppies, shoving his sister around and feeling her shove back, shaking her muzzle in his hand and snapping at her fingers when she whirled around to do the same. He even let her take a razor to his mohawk, trimming the matted edges and shaping it into something a little more respectable. Having learned fur care in bathrooms of clubs over the years, she said, she could manage to shape it into something that would fit his look and demeanor. Ragged and fluffy as the strip of white fur down his cranium was, he had to agree. He liked it, and that little haircut did help him cope with the heat.

The swine, however, had no hair to cut, and nothing to do but whine and complain about a heat he could not escape. Truthfully, it was not that bad. Wolf agreed, the mid to lower seventies was not a temperature he wanted to live at, and he would prefer it in the upper sixties, but beggars could not be choosers. Sophronia was feeding them and letting them live rent-free, the least they could do was not complain about a temperature she didn't much like either, but was content to cope with if it meant she got to forge, and forge she did. With the fall of Andross, every space pirate from Zoness to Macbeth and back again was looking for a weapon that Corneria couldn't trace, and all Sophronia sold were weapons to use against Corneria. Building such things took heat, took metal, and took hands, but with Star Wolf living with her, at least Sophronia had one of these things in excess.

When Pigma was around, of course, which was becoming less and less of a guarantee. Despite Sophronia's initial and very, very clear warning, Pigma was still prone to vanishing and reappearing with cash. Sometimes he left with no cash and came back with bundles, sometimes it was the other way around, but not one credit of it went to Soph. She didn't need it, with the boom in her business, but the subtle deepening of the furrow of her eyebrows, the raised hackles on her legs, the growl in her throat, all of it betrayed that it was beginning to get to her. Wolf couldn't blame her.

It all came to a head, one slightly less busy day. The only oddity? Pigma had been gone for far, far too long, hours upon hours rather than merely a few. There was an unspoken question in the air, hanging by a thread, but nobody was willing to pop the balloon and drop the question of where he was. He did return, after nearly a full day and evening of being gone, and returned with a smug, self-satisfied air. After being pinned by Sophronia the first time, he knew better than to walk in with such a haul unarmed, blaster spinning around one finger, his other hand clutched greedily around what Wolf was almost certain was a burlap sack, jangling with credits. As much as the worlds hated one another, they all used the same currency. At least in the Lylat system, they did, it was just easier for everyone involved. Not that very many made it out of Corneria, Katina, and Zoness. 

Without missing a beat, he ignored Sophronia's pointed stare, leaned up against the workbench by the door, shut it behind him, and rolled his shoulders. He opened his mouth to say something, likely something rude, but Wolf stepped in first. Leaned on the table opposite from Soph, they truly were two peas in a pod.

"I hope some of that is for your dear old boss, Pigma."

"You want cash, gamble yourself, O'Donnell!"

Unacceptable. Two sets of eyes narrowed, both the same, impenetrable violet color, though Wolf's had a bit more of a crimson hue, burning flecks of it speckled in his iris. "Let me rephrase that : Where did you get that much money."

"CDF bonuses just came in, where do you think I got it?!"

Perhaps it was the stench of liquor that clung to the pig that made him so disrespectful and reckless. Perhaps it was just familiarity with the wolf who had pushed himself off the table to go and teach that bottom feeder a lesson. Perhaps it was just the close quarters that had pushed Pigma past common block-headedness and into pure stupidity. Whatever it was, two wolves bore down on him with mouths full of teeth and heads full of questions, knuckles thirsting for bloodshed. The only thing that saved him was their penchant to bicker.

"Paws the fuck off, Sophronia, he's mine to slaughter."

"Are you kidding me?! I told him to leave those CDF fucks alone-"

"And I'm about to reinforce the message, back off, you're heavy-handed!"

"I should kill him for this, if he was followed he could-!"

The fight, and Pigma's intended beat-down, were both paused by the realization that he had been followed, and the loud rumbling of angry engines in angrier Cornerian Fighters. Pissed off as they may have been, they knew to cover their asses before they tore each other apart. Pigma didn't need to be told what to do, he scrambled to his hooves and flew out of the door, a peculiar sight many would have taken as an omen. Sophronia bounded out of a side door to open the garage/hangar door as Pigma forced his Wolfen into gear. All Wolfens could drive, albeit not very well, and that feature was about to save him from bringing the house down around their ears. Impatient for something to do, Wolf ran to the furnace at the back of the room. Leon, a silent yet wide-eyed witness to the entire shit-show, didn't need another word. He hopped off his stool and helped to bank the fire, then shut the door and latch it, slowly covering the flue so the fire would die out.

Pigma and Sophronia returned just as the Fighters, likely home to drunk, poor Cornerian grunts, crunched onto the gravel outside. The wave of Soph's paw was a moot point, Star Wolf had hit the deck the moment that the Fighters were close enough to see. Scrambling under worktables, Star Wolf, plus one direwolf, waited. And waited. And waited. One grunt banged on the door and shouted something in rough Papetoonian, while his buddies flanked around. The complex was large, the odds that they would care enough about a few hundred credits each to look around the entire place were low. Still, as voices raised, lowered, and raised again, tension had replaced the question in the air. Leon was beside Wolf, pocketknife in his hand, ready to fight. Sophronia had produced a pair of brass knuckles from somewhere, and Pigma, well. The poor bastard had merely hidden his head under his hands. 

It was merely a few minutes before the disgruntled soldiers gave up and left, angrily shouting obscenities all the while, but the silence lasted far, far longer, long after the roars of the engines had dimmed and disappeared. The minutes between the Fighters leaving and Sophronia's next words felt like hours, but the slow, deliberate voice still crushed Wolf's heart, unexpectedly, like a vice.

"You guys have got to go."

* * *

The beatdown Pigma was expecting never came, after that declaration from Sophronia. The CDF outpost had been mostly restored to living conditions, with a stable life support system and some form of heating, Star Wolf could move out. The conditions were worse, but livable, and the patience and good-will of Sophronia O'Donnell had run out. The vibe in the air was quiet, with a small undertone of tensity, and anger, boiling just under the surface. It was ready to explode, it just needed a light, and such a spark in a pack full of headstrong, stubborn individuals, like the O'Donnells, was never, ever far away. 

At the very least, Sophronia was sending Star Wolf off with new gear. She had given Wolf a blaster with a new bayonet, and polished up the pocketknife that Leon had gotten at their first arrival. Pigma, knowing, for once, that now was not the time, requested nothing. He was given nothing in return, nothing but a cold shoulder from Sophronia, and perhaps, in her own form of spite, she wore only an outfit of a black t-shirt and cargo pants. That seemed to depress him most of all, and he loaded his Wolfen, unaided, in silence. Wolf didn't like this air, this humming sense of impending doom, but what could he do but accept Soph's help as she loaded a final crate of supplies into the cargo hold of his ship. With a grunt, she closed the hatch, and gave it two pats. Why? Why not? It was a good ship. "That shouldn't pop open. I made sure to make some repairs to your ships, so they won't come apart when you exit orbit."

"Thanks, Sophronia." It was an awkward moment. He raised his hand to scratch at the back of his neck just as Sophronia did the same. He gave a half-hearted snicker, but it fell flat, Sophronia's replying chuckle didn't have any heart in it. "I'm sorry. About Pigma."

"I'm sorry I have to kick you out too," she responded, kicking at the dirt in the hangar with her foot. "I wouldn't. Do this if I didn't have to, you're my brother, but... I gotta take care of myself, sort out my own shit. Before I can take care of you."

_Don't say it, Wolf. It's not worth it, Wolf._

"Just like you left me with dad, huh? I get it. Can't have me crampin' your style." The words were bitter, and perhaps uncalled for. The growl from his sister proved that he, perhaps, should not have done it.

From the corner of his working eye, he could see her fur stand on end, see her lips raise to growl at him. "Don't even fuckin' go there, Conrad! I didn't have a choice and you know that!"

He turned to face her, hands jammed into the pockets of his coat, eager to pick a fight. Old wounds that had never healed over, wounds that still bled and ached. "Oh, my mistake, I thought you simply left me behind. No, you were a teenager with your wings, and the only thing you wanted to do was get away from me, so badly you wouldn't take me with you."

"I wanted to get away from _dad, shithead!"_ Sophronia slammed her fist against the side of his Wolfen, producing a loud clanging sound. The open and close of a door betrayed that Pigma, wisely, had run away from the fight, perhaps to go and fetch Leon. Not that it would help, as Sophronia took a step closer to Wolf, invading his space. "You remember how bad it was."

"And I remember wanting to leave!" Finally showing his own anger, Wolf stepped up to the metaphorical plate. Soph was a touch taller than he was, and certainly had more muscle, but anger clouded his sense of judgment. "But you were just too selfish to take me with you, weren't you?"

The thing about packs is sometimes, packs fight. They fight for hierarchy, they fight for food, and sometimes, they fight because they refuse to get to the root of their own issues. Riling Soph up was just as easy as it always had been, and just like she always did, Wolf ducked his head to the side as she threw a punch, left hook, the beginning, and end, of almost all of her streetfights. Not this one. Wolf was an opponent that knew Sophronia, perhaps better than she did herself, and that fight-ending punch was just the beginning, as he brought up his boot to catch her in the stomach.

It knocked her back, and winded her, but she was too large and too tough for even a hit like that to phase her overmuch. With a snarl, and perhaps an unexpected move, she lunged for him. Instead of grabbing him, or catching her fall, she took them both to the floor. Wolf felt his back hit the concrete before his head did, and bared his teeth, bringing his arms up to catch Soph's own and throwing her off of him. In the same motion, he rolled onto his side, propped himself up with his arms, and threw a kick her direction. It went wide, and he was left in somewhat of an awkward spot as she recovered, nabbed his ankle, and gave it a yank to send him back over. He hit his shoulder on the concrete again and yelped, flailing out his grabbed foot. He felt it connect with her nose, and heard her bark in response.

Slowly, she let go. Wolf dropped his foot to the floor, and pushed himself back to standing, as he heard shuffling movements behind him that indicated Sophronia doing the same. He met her eyes. There was something like regret in them, something he knew was on his own face. There was nothing, save for the sound of hard breathing, and then, she spoke. 

"You. Just get on outta here, Conrad. I won't tell dad I saw you."

* * *

"So. I got on outta there. I fired Pigma for ruining the deal we had with Sophronia. He left with almost all of our money. But I was glad to be rid of him."

"Have you talked to her?"

"No."

"... Maybe you should?"

"Go to bed, Andrew."


	14. Can You Look Around The Room?

_I can't get what the kid said out of my head. I didn't sleep last night, I left the table after I finished the story. It was a dick move and Leon was grumpy I didn't help with dishes, but I can't stop thinking about Sophronia. I should give her a call._

_We need a carrier anyways. She would know where to get one. Sophronia always knows where to get something._

_Wolf O'Donnell, Log 2591, six years after Venom_

* * *

It was late at night, a sort of late that Wolf was familiar with. Time in space was irrelevant, hours and minutes and seconds, the 24-hour format, was only on Corneria and Venom. This late, however, cracking his eye open and staring at his ceiling, did not need a time attached to it. It didn't matter what time the chronometer said, this late was more of a feeling than a true time. Mired in thought, wishing desperately for sleep, but knowing that if he was awake, it was for a purpose. Lylus wanted him to do something, and he would be loathed to ignore it. The last time he had ignored such a dire sense of urgency, he had lost his eye. Now, he knew when he was awoken like this, there was a task at hand. He knew what he had to do, he had been wrestling with the thought all night.

He rolled onto his side, groping blindly for his eyepatch to pull it over the hole in his head. Cosmetics improved as far as he cared to improve them, he opened his nightstand drawer and fetched out his comms pad. With a grunt and a sigh, he put the pad by his head and typed in a comms number. "What are you doing, Conrad," he mumbled to himself, as the ringing played and played, echoing quietly in his room. "She won't pick up. She's never picked up. Just hang up, and go back to-"

"Conrad?"

* * *

"Tell me again why we're here?"

_ "Panther thinks we are here to be beautiful, we are here to love, we are here to-" _

_ "Stuff it, Socrates. And look alive!" _

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Perhaps a dour attitude to have in the middle of a fight, but Andrew couldn't help himself. Getting into a space tango with Star Fox hadn't been on his to-do list today, Wolf ad been very, very tight-lipped about why they were flying out into the middle of nowhere to begin with! However, as he yanked hard on his steering column to avoid a spray of fire from a twin-laser system. Rolling to the side, he saw the ship of Peppy Hare whiz past him and then pull up, rocketing into the void above. A classic maneuver. That's what Peppy was, classic. Piloting an old _Invader I_ model, the hare, though rarely in the cockpit now, flew like he did decades ago when he was with James and Pigma, He was predictable in his flight patterns and attack strategies, but that's what made him such a problem. Those strategies had survived for so long because they worked.

Kicking his Half and Half up a notch, Andrew threw out another, wider roll, and dipped between the aggressive dogfight happening between Leon and Falco, hoping to catch Peppy in the crosshairs of the absolute light show going on between the two. It didn't work, Peppy's sights locked back onto his tail as he pulled back, hard, flying up and through the pandemonium of the rivals again. Falco flew his _Sky Claw_ , and as Andrew would put it, the way that the bird and the lizard fought was like a couple of flies on caffeine. Turning, somersaulting, twisting and rocketing back around, the _Sky Claw_ was a fast, maneuverable ship with multi-lock and Smart Bombs, something Andrew was eager to get the hell away from. He rolled his Half and Half over and flew above the 'center' of their battlefield, upside down, and then dipped down to find Panther and Slippy.

Slippy's _Bullfrog_ was in almost every way, the opposite of the _Sky Claw._ It suffered from low speed, and had no lock-on capabilities at all, but what it lacked in flexibility, it made up for in pure power. Large plasma cannons were mounted on it, unable to charge, but able to seriously do some damage. Comparable to Panther's Zapper, actually, which is what was currently duking it out with. Both of the pilots were careful not to catch their teammates in the wreckage of their weapons, but they were very eager to press buttons and fire their respective toys. That could help him with his current rodent problem.

"Panther, coming in with lunch!"

Fate bless the cat, Panther responded to his call and noted the Arwing following his every move. With a deft maneuver up and over the Bullfrog, Panther flew up as Andrew flew down, spinning, and fired his insidious little Zapper into the Hare's Arwing. A dead-on hit, the shields of the old craft simply couldn't keep up. Peppy pulled his Arwing out of the blast and retreated somewhat, making a wide loop back towards the Great Fox. The Star Fox team was trying to pull the battle within range of ROB's weapons and help, but Star Wolf refused to budge. Peppy must have been going back for a breather after a rattling hit like that.

"Nice shot!"

_"Panther thanks you, thanks you, yes."_

_"If you two are done kissing each other's ass, get her offa me!"_

The grand fight going on in the metaphorical center stage had become unfair. A two on one battle, Wolf could handle dodging Fox's _Arwing II_ with his _Red Claw._ What he could not dodge, however, was Krystal and her _Cloudjumper._ A new ship, unlike the one she had crashed on Sauria, the _Cloudjumper_ was built far more like an Arwing, with a large, open cockpit and heavy shields. Her weapons were moderate, and her maneuverability was solid, but what was truly terrifying was Krystal's mind. The Cerinian had never been educated on 'proper' battle techniques. She fought to win, unlike Star Fox, who fought to disable. She was scary, and didn't fight fairly, and if she was near Wolf? She was making his life hell. In the corner of his comms screen, Andrew could see Wolf, flying with one hand, the other clutching the blinded side of his head.

"Panther, keep Slippy and the old guy occupied! I'll go and handle the Missy."

Twirling his control column in his hand, Andrew pulled away from bullying Slippy and headed for the center fight. It was an extremely dangerous battle, which is why the other two fights were taking place on either side of it, giving the combatants a wide berth. Sprays of laser fire and the occasional Smart Bomb and EMP launcher were thrown, it was a mess to fly into safely, but Andrew's Half and Half was easy to control. Weaving in and out of the chaos, Andrew got close enough to pick off Krystal, pressing the large button on top of his steering column that would activate his lock on. Once he had it locked, he let it fire.

It bounced off the shields on the Jumper, but it had gotten her attention, Andrew could hear Star Fox's radio chatter now that he was so close to Fox and Krystal, see their tiny faces in the corner.

_"Are you okay!?"_

_"I am fine. Allow me to handle this."  
_

_"Be safe, don't do anything dangerous!"_

Great, he had her! Pulling out of the disco of death, he flew what he thought was a safe distance away, dodging and weaving to avoid getting locked onto by the Jumper's twin laser system. However, even as he pulled his Wolfen around to get into a tangle with her, he felt pressure on his temples, like somebody had pressed two fingers onto them both. He knew what this was, as Wolf's somewhat sporadic movements became aggressive again. Krystal had let go of Wolf, but she'd locked onto him with something far more dangerous than a laser system!

A Cerinian's mind, he had been told, was not like a Lylatian's. They could do things that a normal man would find torturous, and Andrew had to agree, as a splitting headache rippled down the center of his head, from forehead to the nape of his neck. The edges of his vision went dark, and he thought he heard voices. He forced himself to steer the Wolfen in a defensive, evasive pattern, but it was hard to focus on anything but the pressure that was no inside his skull, threatening to blow it apart. The thought that Wolf could fly with this sort of thing happening was inspiring, but also, not what he needed to focus on. What he needed to focus on were his memories, was his-

 _Wait, huh?!_ Andrew picked his hand up to slap it a few times against the side of his head, shaking it vigorously. _Is she inside my memories?!_ She had to be, this was no time or place to be thinking about his Academy days, it was no time to think about Venom, it was no time to think about his uncle-

 _No._ No, he couldn't let her get into that. If she started digging in all the things he knew, she could find things he had sworn he would take to his grave, the labs, the inventions, the _casket-_

_No. No! Get OUT!_

Something inside his mind seemed to release, like the click of a latch, and he shoved back, hard. His vision, which had become blurry, swum back into focus. He took note of a few things at once. One, he was on the outskirts of the fight, he had nearly flown directly into Wolf. He tugged on his steering column to get away from it, but he became aware of something else. He flicked his finger against his screen, pulling Krystal's picture into full view.

She was saying something, but he wasn't cognizant of words yet. What he was aware of was the tears streaming down her face, and what had to be dark blood coming from her nose. Andrew scanned the skies for her Jumper. There, stuck in the chaos of the main dogfight, Wolf was pressing his advantage on Fox, who was now solely on the defensive. The other members of Star Fox were too, they had all moved to defensive techniques instead of purely offensive, as the radio chatter began to make sense to his muddled, sore ears.

_"Pull back. Pull back! Krystal, get out of the fight! Go!"_

The Jumper stood still, as Krystal's form had merely put her head in her hands. Fox was driving Wolf away from her, but Wolf had no interest. Peppy's old model Arwing swooped back in to defend her prone starship, but, slowly, the Jumper turned it's thrusters on and fled.

With that, the battle had turned to Star Wolf's favor. The fight was four on four, rather than four on five, and Star Fox was shaken. Instead of responding to Wolf's inquiries about how he felt, Andrew drove his Half and Half directly at Peppy, ready to tear that hare to shreds. Metaphorically. He remembered his promise to Lucy, and wasn't going to break it with murder.

He didn't have to. Star Wolf, now rejuvenated with confidence, fought back hard against the battle they had previously been losing. One by one, the Arwings turned tail. Peppy, Slippy, then Falco, whom Leon had to be ordered not to chase down. Even the legendary Fox McCloud couldn't stand up to four Wolfens, and he, too, had to flee, but not without a final word in.

_"What did you do to her?!"_

No answer, just the lock of three Wolfens, and an approximate lock-on of Panther's Zapper. Fox knew better than to try that fight.

He fled. The great Fox McCloud, James Jr., ran from Star Wolf.

They won.

* * *

Celebrations, however, had to wait, and the mood was subdued as the Star Wolf team arrived onto Aquas. It was harder than one would think, Aquas was a planet of mostly water, and also home to a large sect of space pirate activity. Space pirates that were not friendly to Sargasso, and pirates that Wolf was very keen to avoid as he landed with Wolfen on an exposed outcropping of rock, large for the ocean planet, with a strip just wide enough for four Wolfens to land if they were careful about it. Star Wolf was not careful, but they made it without any major issue, and Andrew could appreciate the fresh, moist air as he opened his cockpit and took a deep breath.

His head still hurt, vaguely, but it was a curious sensation. Less of a distracting pain, more of a companion and he jumped down and immediately fell on his ass, as his boots slipped on the wet rock. He heard some Papetooian cursing coming from Panther's direction that indicated he probably did the same thing, if Andrew knew the words for 'rock' and 'Lylus damn it', which he thought he did. Wolf was clearly prepared for the moisture, so he didn't slip, and to catch Leon on his backfoot was a rarity that would make one rush out and buy some lottery tickets.

Putting his nose to the air, Wolf was clearly on alert for... Something. Aquas was dark, the skies were not polluted, but the night sky did not offer much light. Panther, less silent than he would like to think he was, sidled up to Andrew's side. "My friend, Panther would like to know how you are feeling? Perhaps a touch-"

"Quiet," ordered Wolf, which put an end to any questions from the cat. With a silent breath of relief, Andrew was happy to comply, keeping his ears open for anything suspicious. There, a tap of a rock underfoot as somebody sent a pebble skittering to its doom in the ocean far below. The figure coming out from around the rocks before the team was tall, somewhat bulky, with pointed ears and a long, bushy tail-

"Soph?" Wolf's posture had turned into something standoffish, standing up tall, feet planted firmly into the ground, tail up and fur raised. The approaching figure, who did reveal herself to be Sophronia in the light cast from the Wolfens, had her hands planted on her hips, a blaster in a holster at her side. Dressed in a long shirt and pants that passed her knees, she wasn't the wild party girl Wolf had painted her to be, but perhaps she didn't like the wet. Andrew knew he didn't.

"It's still me, pup. Come on. I've got it here."

Without another word, Sophronia turned and disappeared, large boots gripping into the rock and allowing her to vault herself up and over. With something that sounded a lot like a mutter of "showoff," Wolf, content to walk, went around the rock, beckoning for Star Wolf to follow. Leon, having joined Panther and Andrew, was the first to follow. As he always did, unquestioningly, trusting his leader. Andrew shared a look with Panther, and to lighten the tone, Andrew made a face and twirled his finger around his temple. Panther giggle snorted, waved his paw at Andrew in a 'stop it' motion, then headed off to follow Leon's retreating form, Andrew bringing up the rear.

* * *

There were several things that Sophronia O'Donnell could have led them into. A trap, perhaps, a welcome feast of laser fire and slug rounds, hell, perhaps even a party to apologize to Wolf for whatever it was that still lay festering between them like a rotten fruit. What was last on his lists of 'things that I could find when I round this last corner' was a large cave, with a surprise inside.

A large ship, but not a normal starship. No, this appeared to be a large ore hauler, large in the sense that it was made for several tons of raw minerals, likely an old one from the age before the Lylat Wars, as a faded mark of Macbeth was still painted on the hull. Big, bulky, and gunmetal grey, it was a sight to behold, and Andrew took it in with a mix of pity and disbelief. "What the fuck?"

"Happy birthday, kid." Sophronia said proudly, beaming at what he suspected was her 'handiwork'. "Got it off a guy that owed me a debt the size of Corneria, after his little rebellion on Papetoon fell on its face. Old dude used to run a company in Macbeth before Corneria basically subsidized and divvied up the whole damn planet. Told me it was mine. And now it's yours."

There was something in those words that made it seem like this was not a normal 'gift'. Sophronia turned her eyes on Wolf, who, for once, met her gaze. Gratitude was not something that Wolf specialized in, but perhaps, this was him truly trying, as he raised a hand to put it on her shoulder. "... Thank you, Soph. I needed this thing." Two tails wagged in an identical fashion, and perhaps, they shared a smile.

Until, Panther, in true Panther fashion, piped up. "Um, hello, Panther has some questions?"

Snapping out of a family-friendly moment, Wolf let go of his sister and took a step to the side, clearing his throat. "Well, boys, flying around in our Wolfens constantly is kind of a drag. So. I pulled some strings-" At this, Sophronia pointed two thumbs at herself and grinned. "... Sophronia, pulled some strings, and got us this. It can be repurposed into a carrier, can't it Andrew?"

"Me?!" That was quite a weight to put on him! "I haven't even seen the inside yet!" Of course, as he examined the prospective carrier, Andrew had to admit... It had potential. He has seen the Rampion Model Cargo-Loader before, and could almost see the schematics stretching out, a wireframe folding over the ship as he studied it. A large hatch for loading cargo that could easily turn into a launch bay, a large area for living. It was nothing like the Great Fox, it was magnitudes smaller, of course, but it appeared to be made for a twelve-person crew, with an eating area, several dormitories, it would be cramped compared to Sargasso. Andrew moved his arms and closed an eye, making a square with his fingers and stretching it out, taking a few steps back. 

"... Yeah. I think I can make something happen, if I had some extra hands."

"Great! I'm coming home with you fools."

Andrew, absorbed in his work, almost let that line fly over his head, but Wolf's startled noise from beside him snapped him out of it, and he looked over. Wolf had an expression of pure shock on his face, having taken another step away from Sophronia. "What?! You're coming to Sargasso?!"

His sister, pleased as punch to spook her brother, winked at Wolf and his crew, equally surprised. "Of course I am. If we're gonna make up and stick it to dad, I'm coming back with you. I'm sure your buddies want some weapons, I could use a new location, and the kiddo here needs some help making this old thing a carrier. Plus, somebody needs to fly it out."

Faced with such a quandary, Wolf spluttered, and then, eventually, gave up the fight, throwing his hands up into the air. "Fine! Fine. You can come home with me. But I'M flying the Rampion, it can't be that hard-"

"I'm flying it." Surprised, once more, to be interrupted by Andrew of all people, all heads that had been following the argument swiveled towards Andrew, who dared to contradict what Wolf said. Andrew waved his hand to cut off the offense from Wolf, who had a thing about being interrupted. "I know this ship. Uncle helped design it. I can fly it better than you can. Come on, we'd better get home, before Belnito figures out we're here."


	15. Boss Sound

_I'm worried about Andrew. Since the fight, he's been acting even weirder than before. He holds his head all the time, whines and complains about the bright lights in Sargasso. He's had these awful headaches, too. He spends all his time in the hangar in the dark, fixing the Rampion. He installed the mag-rails and it's ready to fly, but he hasn't left his room for long in a few days. I'm going to go and check on him and see what's wrong._

_I hope he's okay. Krystal can be really heavy-handed with her brain magic, if she hurt Andrew, knowing who his uncle is... I'm afraid she may have knocked something loose. We don't have a real medic here to help him._

_Wolf O'Donnell, Log 2607, six years after Venom_

* * *

With the last flourish on the 'm' of his diary entry, Wolf set his pen aside and closed the cover of his journal. It was a pale rose color, with a cutesy gold chain and lock across it, but he didn't much care. It was the biggest one he could find when shopping for a journal, and nobody was going to see it, why would he care what it looked like? He flicked the cover closed, 'locked' it (which was really just turning the locket sideways until he heard the cheap plastic click), and then put it in the drawer of his writing desk. Then, he plunged his hand inside the shirt and grabbed his wolf's head locket, popping it open with his claw to get the key out of it. He locked his desk drawer, then put the key back into the locket. One could never be too safe with one's own thoughts, Wolf believed, and that drawer was also where he kept the ledgers for Sargasso. All he needed was one curious space ruffian that didn't fear death poking around in here for the whole place to go up in flames. The loans were paid off, and the loan sharks were out of his hair, but Sargasso was still somewhat lacking in money.

The lupine pushed himself up and out of his chair and stretched upwards until he felt his spine click. He then leaned from left to right, switching the hand on his hip to work his somewhat sore muscles. His room had, finally, been fully furnished. A plush rug on the floor, a large bed befitting of a man like him, dark purple and black in color scheme. He smirked and snarled at his reflection in his vanity, then shook his head at the silliness of the action. _What am I, a kid? Come on, better go check on the real kid._ Wolf headed to his door, slipped his paws into his large boots, and grabbed his jacket. He steadied the coatrack that threatened mutiny by falling on him and headed out.

* * *

"You seen Andrew, Panth?"

"Ah?" The black cat tilted his hand mirror to look behind himself, reflecting Wolf's somewhat bemused reflection. With a jump, Panther put the mirror down and whirled himself around to face his boss. He hid the mirror behind his back, like he wasn't being a diva, and stood up straight. "Ah, no, Panther has not!" The grin on his face was guilty, but Wolf knew he was only guilty of being full of himself, not lying. He rolled his eyes. Panther had moved in fully, sitting at his own vanity and gazing at his reflection. The man was self-absorbed, but Wolf knew half of that was due to his reputation as a ladies man. He was truly a good man at heart, just silly. Would a bad man have small vials of Papetoonian sand hanging from a shelf? No, he was just a dork was all.

"You sure? I haven't heard from him all day." Wolf invited himself in, letting the door close behind him. Panther's room was dimly lit, due to the sensitivity of the cat's eyes. He struggled to adjust, but just for a moment, long enough for Panther to shove the mirror in a drawer and stand up. He had a rug too, though it was somewhat thinner than the one in Wolf's room. Panther compensated for that by having soft furniture everywhere, several chairs, a large bed, and throw pillows were scatted everywhere. Wolf wondered, in an absurd sort of way, if the cat was having pillow fights in here. "He didn't seem hungry last night."

His attention captured, Panther flicked his tail from side to side, then put his fingers to his chin in consideration. "Hmm..." The feline pondered, tilting his head this way and that. "Yes, yes, Panther thinks he saw Andrew go into Leon's room earlier. Perhaps ask him?"

* * *

"I sent him to go lay down."

To bother Leon uninvited was normally a death sentence. All sorts of sharp, deadly looking apparatuses lay across the walls of Leon Powalski's room, on shelves, on racks, here there and everywhere. A large table was placed in the center of the room with vials of... Who even knew what, meticulously laid across it. Wolf thought that, perhaps, the knives on the walls were alphabetized, the lizard was that much of a neat freak. Said lizard was currently halfway up the wall, balancing himself on a shelf while he fetched a blade. Without his black suit on, Leon wasn't half as scary as normal, though Wolf wasn't about to say so. 

Leon jumped down and then placed the knife on his bed. It was small compared to Wolf's and Panther's, but then, Leon was small, so he didn't need much room, did he? "I checked his room. He wasn't there earlier."

"Then he is defying my orders. What of it?"

Tricky and elusive to a fault, Wolf rolled his eye and came out with it already. "Leon, buddy. How was he doing?" He changed his tone to become softer, less authoritative, more friendly. A tone he used when it was just them. Leon responded in kind, sitting on his bed and producing a whetstone from his bedside table. He curled his tail around his midsection, allowing his colors to turn. Yellow, pink, and a touch of deep, dark blue, near black.

"So that is what you want. He still had a headache and he said it was worse. I told him to get a drink of water and lay down. I made sure he did." With a blink, Leon set stone and sword aside, and then stood up. "If he is in his hangar, I am going to kill him personally."

Leon crossed the room to Wolf, crossing his arms and looking up at him. The size difference was almost hilarious. "You should come with me. And Panther too. If the boy has done something silly, it is best all three of us are there."

"Can I pick up Soph?"

A blink, and a slight pause from Leon. His colors shifted from a myriad to just his solid, lime green. He nodded. "It would be wise to do so. I doubt she is even awake yet."

* * *

 _I'm just fine. I'm just fine. I don't need to rest, I need to finish the amenities inside, and the mag-rails need to be test driven. I'm just dehydrated is all._ The three empty water bottles in his regularly-cleaned wastebasket told a different story, but Andrew ignored them, and tossed the fourth one. The bottle missed the company of its brethren and, instead, in an act of defiance, bounced off the rim. It rolled off to places unknown to water-bottle-kind, and Andrew drew a hand down his face. _Fate damn it. Come on Andrew, you need to finish this carrier._ For all intents and purposes, it was done. All that was left were quality of life upgrades, fixing the whiny shower system, getting the ozone smell out of the air purifier. That sort of thing. _Come on. Get. Up. You're better than this._

Was he? His head pounded, ever since that fight with Krystal, it hadn't gone away. Really, it had ebbed and flowed, but now it was a constant drone on his psyche. It was getting annoying. A little concerning too, not that he'd let himself be worried about the fact that he couldn't stand up. He'd been trying for a while now, but every time he did, he felt his head disagree strongly with that notion. He was stronger than a clump of grey matter in his head, he knew he was! Matter over mind, wasn't it?

That didn't matter, what did matter was the doors to the hangar bay opening. This was not the normal hangar, but instead, a larger one, made for projects like this. The sound of the door echoed into the low light, as Andrew had turned most of them off. To accommodate the headache he was adamant didn't exist. Andrew looked up and towards the door. Wolf, Panther, Leon. Sophronia too, who had kept to her word about staying with Wolf. She had been helping tremendously with the construction of the carrier, his only problem with her was that she had the sleep schedule of a college student. Up all night, asleep all day.

He had another problem. Wolf had that look on his face. His boss wasn't one for wild facial expressions like Panther, so his range was somewhat limited. However, whenever he was worried, he got a crease between his brows. At the moment, Andrew wagered he could drive a Wolfen through that crease. "Oh, hi guys, wanna check out what I-"

The back half of that sentence would remain forever a mystery, as Andrew stood up, and blacked out.

* * *

"Leon, are you _sure_ that you can't do anything for him?"

"I grew up on a _farm_ , not a mental asylum! I deal with flesh wounds, not-"

"Shh, Panther thinks he is waking up!"

Wolf winced as Panther's voice clearly caused the ape some distress, which was no real wonder. Panther was sitting very close to Andrew, who, in the meantime, had been relocated to the living room while Leon tried to do something. Keyword being tried, as the lizard had stated over and over that he could not treat wounds of the mind. Wolf, seated in his armchair beside the couch, pinched the bridge of his muzzle and growled. _I hope Krystal didn't cook anything important. I don't even know what that was about in the battle._

As Andrew began to slowly swim towards consciousness, with faint huffs and mumbles as his eyes opened, Wolf threw his own thoughts back to the fight. What had happened? Andrew had drawn Krystal's fire, but she had gotten into Andrew's own mind and almost forced Andrew to crash into him, and then... Krystal had cried out in pain, begun bleeding from the nose and fled. Nobody had hit her, of that he was sure, her _Cloudjumper_ didn't have a scratch on it. Her shields were still maxed out regardless. He had never seen Krystal get hurt like that before, but-

Andrew's eyes popped open, so Wolf abandoned his train of thought, leaning over. "How are you doing, pup?"

"I feel like somebody put my head under a Wolfen's wheels and backed up." Eloquent, but likely very accurate, Krystal's brain powers could hurt something awful. Wolf scowled in sympathy and shook his head.

"I know. You sit tight, kid, we'll get you a doctor."

A few voices clamored for his attention then, Sophronia, demanding to know why Leon wasn't enough for this job. Panther, crying out that there was nary a doctor in Sargasso that could handle this. And at last, Andrew, proclaiming that he needed no doctor and in fact, was fine. However, Sophronia and Panther, now embroiled in an argument, both placed large paws to keep Andrew down while they bickered. They got along well, he thought. Leon, though, was silent, until he sighed and raised one claw in the air to hush everyone. Nobody spoke when the lizard was talking.

"I know a doctor. She's in Papetoon. If anyone is going to be able to help an Oikonny, it's her."


	16. From the Darkness, Limping

_I was right to be worried. I was so right to be worried. We've been hauling ass for hours to get to Papetoon, and I can't deny, everyone is tense. Except for Andrew, who keeps saying he's perfectly fine. Like this is nothing to be worried about at all._

_I've kept him on the couch in the main room. He keeps asking for grape soda, but we didn't load any on the Rampion. I totally forgot about it all in the rush._

_Wolf O'Donnell, Log 2608, six years after Venom_

* * *

The Rampion was not a luxury cruiser. The Rampion was not a luxury ship by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, as a cargo-hauler, the captain's quarters were the only decent ones, but time did not permit the knocking down of walls. Rooms could not be expanded, thus, everyone had to live with the small living space provided to the normal crew a Rampion would have. Even Wolf declined to use the captain's quarters, citing that 'it wouldn't be fair. You guys are in the shit more than I am.' Thus, they remained empty, and the cargo hauler played pretend, pretending to be a commuter's ship.

Leon was also playing pretend. He was 'pretending' to be a doctor, though he had no formal training with anything like this. Growing up on a large-scale farm, he knew how to clean manure from wounds. He knew how to stitch up large gashes. He knew how to bind a sprained ankle. He did not, however, know how to treat an illness of the mind. People may have called him 'crazy', but he was not, in fact, sick in the head. Beyond the... 'Oddities' of his family. Contrary to the belief on Corneria, he was not, in fact, a psychopath. Nor was he fascinated by blood and gore. He respected the art form of a fight, he admired the amount of strength it took to win one. Sometimes, that bubbled up to the surface in mirth and applause. Appreciation, Leon liked to call it. He was no sicker in the head than the people in Corneria that screamed at their televisions when their sports team earned a point.

But, he could digress from his mental state and shift to Andrew's. Wolf was pretending to be a Rampion pilot. Andrew was pretending to be okay. Sophronia was pretending to be asleep, and Panther was pretending to not be over the moon to visit Papetoon. They were a regular troupe of theater kids, weren't they?

"Quit being a diva, Wolf, I'm just fine! Turn around so we can go home!"

"Shut up, we're almost there." This was the seventh time, Leon counted, that this exact argument had taken place. Wolf was normally not so aggressive towards Andrew, but his behavior had warranted it. "Leon, can we make contact with her yet?"

He blinked, raising his head from his perch on the chair beside Andrew's couch. He had been placed on 'monkey watch', essentially acting as maid and manservant, since he was the only person on Star Wolf with any sort of medical knowledge. He did not like the job, but he liked this job even less. Calling Eve.

Evening Light was... _How to describe her,_ Leon wondered, rising up from his chair. She was a force of nature. She was an ex-girlfriend from years prior. She was the owner of a Ph. D, though he suspected not in medicine, and was not an avid fan of the Oikonny bloodline. This was about to be a wonderful conversation. To steady his nerves and keep his own cold temper under control, as he approached the control panel, he began to think of dinner. He liked to cook, even when most of his foodstuffs were canned. Cooking was just about throwing together some cheap ingredients to make something good. That was the best way to bamboozle the monarchy on Venom.

"I should be able to plug in her comms number and get her to reach us." His fingers, claws really, reached for the buttons as if on auto-pilot. A seven-digit comms number. He knew this number by heart, he used to plug it in all the time. As his finger hit the final button and the comms number was accepted, he began to have... Doubts.

 _Helping Andrew is the right thing to do. You know that._ One ring. Two rings. _I should've kept my mouth shut. The boy is likely just rattled._ Three rings. Four. "Ah, she isn't picking-"

"Leon?"

* * *

_Big fucking snake._

That was the first thought Wolf had, looking up at the screen to meet this enigmatic 'Eve' character Leon spoke of. In his own defense, that was a correct thought. An, ahem, _big fucking snake_ loomed over him, so to speak, an image of her cast onto the windshield of the Rampion. On first glance, she was pretty. Eve's scales were a riot of shades of brown and black, from a pale Monterey white on her neck and down her belly, to walnut and gingerbread across her back. In the distance, Wolf could see patterns of black across her tail, that likely ran up her back. Big, round glasses with lenses as thick as a Coca-Cola bottle perched on the end of a somewhat delicate snout, the black frames contrasting with a white lab coat. Somewhat beady eyes peered from behind them, a milky chocolate color. She was thin, though tall, with only one pair of gloved hands folded in front of her like she was praying. However, as she spoke, some... Less, conventionally attractive features appeared.

"I haven't heard from you in years! Where have you been?" Large fangs were tucked back into her mouth, a forked tongue waggling to produce sounds like Common Lylatian. Her odd structure of mouth gave her something of a stereotypical snake lisp. Which was to say, the 'sss' sound became elongated to a somewhat silly degree. Wolf declined to mention this, instead, saying silent as Leon 'turned on the charm'. Seeing Leon trying to act polite towards what would be a 'pretty' reptilian girl was... Somewhat off-putting. He trampled the feeling down.

"It is lovely to see you."

"Where have you been?"

"Getting rich and famous. Where have you been?"

"The opposite." Something about those words grated harshly against Wolf's ears, an insult that merited a sharp reply. What was her history, to cause her to be so upset about fame and riches? "You're calling because you need something?"

"Astute as always."

"Humor me, Lee. What do you need from me?"

"I need to procure some... Medical, advice. For a friend." Was Leon speaking about Wolf, or Andrew? Having slipped into Papetoonian to make the conversation a little more private, and to keep Andrew from overhearing too much, Wolf found it difficult to follow himself. He supposed he didn't need to understand it all anyway.

Despite her earlier resentment, Eve's face turned up in a gentle smile. She was pretty, very pretty, not just for a reptile. "I'll bite. Bring 'em over, I suppose. What's the name?"

"... Andrew."

A pin could drop, and Corneria would've heard it in the silence that followed. Several beats passed of absolute deadly quiet, and then, rising like a crescendo, Eve's voice. "You want me to _help a fucking **Oikonny?!"**_ At once, the somewhat shy, somewhat snarky snake disappeared to be replaced by a deadly naga. They had reputations, nagas did, for being violent, unreasonable, and terrifyingly beautiful. A large hood, retracted before, now sprung out in full force. Her fangs flicked out of her mouth to join the party of enraged body parts, and the buzzing Wolf heard wasn't the volume. The end of Eve's tail was a large rattle, now shaking in rage and making sure the world knew of it. "How dare you!" What followed had devolved into rapid Papetoonian, too fast for Wolf to follow. Leon's face contorted first in something akin to surprise, then irritation. Eventually, it turned to anger, though he braved the storm. Panther's face painted a more accurate portrayal as he helped Sophronia off the floor, where she had fallen once the yelling started. Her quiet almost-nap against the wall had been interrupted, and the feline helping her was more than abashed by the yelling, his cheeks turning red. Eventually, the noise subsided, with a half-hearted "I'm a chemist!"

"Yes, Eve, I know you don't like Andross. This isn't Andross."

"It's close enough for me to say fuck no!"

"What if I asked even more politely?"

"No!"

Alright. That was enough. Andrew had picked his sleepy head off the couch, it was time for Wolf to intervene. So caught up in her argument with Leon that she barely noticed Wolf was even in the room, he caught her attention when he stepped more clearly into the light. Her response was a curl of the lip, something like a sneer, though rooted in... Fear. Anger. Those were normal emotions to feel towards Andross, in fact, those were the common ones. "Hi." That sounded lame.

Eve picked up on it too. "I thought Star Wolf would've had some kind of grand speech to make."

"Not a speech makin' kinda guy."

"Clearly."

"... Look. I know you're pissed off about something or other, but we really do need a little assistance."

"Don't we all."

Playing difficult. It was a game Wolf didn't like to play, but if it was for Andrew, he would. Leon had backed off, standing behind him, and to his blind side, a constantly reassuring presence. He liked it when Leon did that. "Are you prepared to just let a kid die if it's something serious?"

"He's an Oikonny."

"And what of it?"

"No Oikonnys are allowed in my house. Ever again."

"Then come to the carrier, we can land by you." The suggestion was so absolutely absurd that he could see the naga trying not to laugh aloud. It wasn't a joke, but something about it seemed to lighten her mood, at least a little. The angry snarl was replaced with a somewhat bemused frown, which was progress.

"You're not going to give up even if I tell you I'd shoot you, are you?"

"Not a givin' up kinda guy." He hazarded an attempt as a smile, though it was half-hearted and weak. Eve seemed to deem it at least passable and retracted her fangs. Her rattle settled, though her hood remained flared.

"Fine. I'll let you bring him here. But I make no promises, and he isn't staying. In return, I won't charge. Fine?"

"Fine."

"And by the way, I'm still just a chemist."

"By the way, I'm still just a space pirate."

* * *

With that crisis averted, it seemed their luck at avoiding utter disaster was getting better. Or at least holding out. Papetoon had suffered in the wake of the Lylat Wars. Fox's home planet, and the home planet of James and Vixy, was not a pleasant place. Covered in mostly desert, there were a few holdouts of Corneria-like civilization. However, tribes mainly roamed the surface of the arid globe, and crime reigned in the sandstorms. Not that they considered it 'crime' most of the time, it was simply how it was. Thankfully, Eve lived in a somewhat remote, though not criminal infested, area. Given the barren nature of Papetoon itself, it was pretty easy to land, even a carrier like this. There was nothing whatsoever to hit, aside from sun-baked shrubs and rocks. Lots and lots of rocks. The Rampion, however, was tough as nails, and if landing on the planet upset it in any way, it did not make it known. Instead, it sat itself down heavily, like a rather fat pigeon, and chimed in a helpful way to let the crew know it was safe to leave. Wolf and Leon stood by the exit, with Andrew leaned against Wolf's side. Not that he wanted to, more like Wolf made him. "I don't trust your legs."

"I know you don't." An agonizing moment after Leon pressed the button, the hatch clicked to signal it's unlocking and helpfully began to lower until it hit the dirt. Leon went first, testing the ramp to ensure it's safety. Wolf reflected that, perhaps, he should have gone first, as he was heaviest, but if it could handle a Wolfen? This was nothing. His boots made a heavy thudding sound against the metal, Andrew's steps sounding almost light in comparison. They hadn't landed far from Eve's house, which was a sight to behold.

Being a naga meant certain things had to be sacrificed for comfort. There were no visible stairs that Wolf could see, however, there was a large wooden pole, encased in shaded glass. The entire building was shaped a little like an axle, tipped on it's side. It was somewhat squat, to withstand sandstorms, however, it was big enough for her to live comfortably. It had two rooves, one on the lower level, one on the upper, both shaped like a cone. As Wolf approached and knocked on the door, he took note of how tall the ceiling was.

The reason for that became clear, as Eve opened the door. She was... Big. Size was relative over a comms console, but Wolf estimated her to be about 1.82 spacemeters. Wrong. Eve 'stood' at around 1.75 spacemeters, but he could see several more stretching behind her in the form of tail. All in all, she was about 3.65 spacemeters long, snout to rattle, and it was disconcerting. Leon, unbothered by the size, extended his hand to shake hers. She eyed it for a moment, then Wolf and Andrew, and eventually, took it. She gave it a quick shake, then turned about, a rather odd movement for a naga. It was achieved by swinging her body around and beckoning over her shoulder, leaving her body and tail trailing behind. "Come on. I need more room to work in."

"Into the belly of the beast, I suppose." Pained he may have been, Andrew was still capable of wisecracks, much to Wolf's surprise. To absolutely nobody's surprise, he was the one to take the first step in, over Eve's tail.


	17. Child Library

Andrew believed that a home was an extension of yourself, your truest desires, the place you felt most comfortable. That was not true for all homes. Some homes are uncomfortable or unsafe, and those do not count. A space where you can be yourself, however, a space where you eat and sleep in comfort. That is a home, and a home like that is where you let your personality bleed. And in some cases, he reflected, looking about the interior of the axle-like building, it also amended your personal comforts. Eve's home was truly a mirror of herself. Her furniture was few and far between, but large, large enough for somebody of her size. _Some snakebody?_ He was getting to be delirious, which he was denying, even as such silly thoughts began to enter his mind.

The color palette was red, yellow, and browns and beiges, arid desert tones that would compliment the sunset and sunrise. Papetoon was no pre-Andross Zoness, however, it had its moments of sheer, wild beauty. Crags and heaps of rock jutted out from its surface to the sky, the otherwise monotonous planes surrendering to the splash of character. Life out here was adapted to this environment, and Eve most of all. She slithered around her home with something like grace, around her chairs, across her carpets, and then, up a pole. The encased pole Wolf had spotted before was indeed Eve's stairs. He could see a trapdoor-like mechanism up top, which she surely shut at night, from his vantage point at the threshold. As she climbed the pole, in a feat of stunning strength, she beckoned them in. "Quick now. Before I change my mind."

Andrew, never one to shirk hospitality, stepped inside a few more feet and took in the air. It smelled of saffron and some sharp smell he detected must be native plant life. Perhaps it was the small, flowering cactus on her windowsill. He wouldn't know, he was unfamiliar with it. However, he was familiar with his last name. In some places, even saying the word 'Oikonny' in a positive light would earn you a bullet. Papetoon was likely the same way, he surmised, taking up a place leaning against the wall. To his surprise, as Wolf joined him, Leon moved through the space as if it were his own. A question that would have to wait, as Eve dislodged a board above her head, and came down with a small metal box.

His consciousness leaped to fill in the blanks as she came down, set it on her dinner table beside the pole, and opened it. Smells rushed out to greet him. Old cologne, motor oil, grease and the tang of metal. It was a familiar assault on the senses, he knew what it was before Eve opened her mouth. "My uncle lived here?"

She jolted as if she had been struck, and Eve lifted her head, gaping at him. Suddenly bashful, he rubbed his nose, and then his temple. "Pretty familiar aftershave, heh."

After a moment, and a surprisingly tender hand on her shoulder from Leon of all people, the motionless statue of Eve jerked back to life. With a short, terse nod, she got back to work, busily rummaging through her stolen items. "He left these here. When he died, I kept them." Her tone bade no questions as to why, as, eventually, her hand closed around something. Her eyes focused on him through the thick lenses of her glasses. "Headaches?"

"Yes."

"Irritable?"

'No' was the response that jumped to mind, but Wolf chimed in. "Very. And denying his condition. And not drinking enough water, damn it."

Annoyingly protective as always, Andrew could do nothing to deny Wolf his nature. He shut his eyes and shook his head, though even a light swaying almost sent him toppling over. Wolf steadied him, as Leon had steadied Eve, but his grip was steel. "Stay with me, kid."

"I am not a-!"

"Kid," Eve finished for him. As if by magic, she had reappeared close to him. He could see the rest of her body trailing behind, where she had turned at the table and slithered over, but he couldn't remember hearing her. It was maddening, that he was losing precious moments of his life, but he said nothing. He ground his teeth as she jerked a thumb to the couch. "Lay down. I think... I have something that might help."

To tell Eve 'no' was rising in his throat, but Wolf's presence told him not to fight it. He acquiesced and wandered over to her large couch, sitting up straight in defiance. A silent growl purled through Wolf's lip, but Andrew challenged it with a baleful glare as Eve deposited something in his hand. Smooth and cylindrical, he turned it over in his hand. His uncle's handwriting stared back at him from the bottle, as chalky white tablets winked through the orange plastic. "You're giving me medication you've never seen before."

"You said you wanted help," Eve hissed back. It was not a pretty hiss, as her tail rattled and her lisp became more acute. "Andross lived here for months. I spent every moment with him. When he got headaches, like yours, spaced out, like you, and got to be a real fucking bastard," Andrew furrowed his brow, but she took no note and barreled on. "He took two of these, had a nap, and was fine. This is the best I can do. Accept it, or get out."

A noise from behind attracted his attention, and he found it was Leon, snickering. Behind his hand, of course, but amused all the same. This was not a mystery he could stand to face right now. This would have to wait, Leon and this snake woman, until he felt better. With a grumble, as he read the instructions and found Eve to be correct in the dosage, he noted that Wolf was right. He was irritable. "Are you sure this won't kill me?"

Eve swept her tail towards the door, and he stopped talking. Leon was wordlessly at his side with a glass of water, and he accepted it as he opened the bottle with one hand. "This is a terrible idea. I don't like it," he found himself saying, functioning almost on autopilot. He wondered if he had ever seen his uncle do this. He wondered why he was thinking of his uncle. It must have been the smell, he deduced, as one blink found him posted up on the couch, eyelids heavy. The people around him had moved to sit, and in Eve's case, coil up on the heat rock in the center of the couch circle. His uncle was dead and gone. He could hurt nobody now. His blinks grew longer, and as he began to wonder if taking a sedative from a woman who claimed to hate him was wise, he closed his eyes, and did not open them again.

* * *

  
Darkness had enveloped him. It was not unwelcoming, cold darkness, however. It was comfortable, warm, like a childhood blanket fort. Black, but cozy, a space all his own. Now if he knew where he was, he would be a little more comfortable, but all the same, he wasn't worried. Andrew couldn't help but feel like this was where he was meant to be, at this moment.

Blinking, he looked down, observing his hands and noticing, with some degree of confusion, that he was a child. Why? Wasn't he... So much older, now? A solid twenty-three years of age. Or was he twenty-four? Time was beginning to melt in his mind as he took in his childlike body, but any and all thoughts on the matter dissolved as music filled his ears. Piano music, mixed with some sort of ethereal tones. Andrew didn't know how to play the piano, beyond the basics, but he knew who could. Taking his eyes off his hands and smaller body, Andrew looked up, out into the darkness that, perhaps, was not so dark. Perhaps it was light. Perhaps it was lit for him to see, with no real light source defined in this void.

Maybe it was his uncle, playing the piano a distance away. Feeling a childish sense of joy overcome his body, Andrew, in awe of seeing a dead man walking again, started to walk. Slowly, at first, hesitantly even, he began to approach, walking on air and yet feeling a smooth, solid surface beneath his bare feet. His uncle was less distance away than he thought, looking down and focusing on taking step after step, he reached the bench where he sat sooner than he thought he would. He looked up.

Andross, before he was crazy, was a somewhat gentle-looking man. Large in the frame, with broad shoulders and long hair, he looked a bit like somebody who would belong in a boxing ring. However, the glasses perched on his nose gave him a gentler air, freckles on his face from age, a look of concentration in his eyes. As Andrew keep looking up, the bench looked bigger, and bigger, until he was merely a foot tall, and the bench was far, far above him, his uncle out of reach.

Feeling a sense of panic, Andrew whined and took a running leap, putting his arms around the leg of the bench and attempting to haul himself upwards. The surface of the wood was too slippery for him to climb, he found, trying to wrap his limbs around it and finding that the wood expanded until he could no longer hold onto it. He slipped off, and fell onto his tail, as his uncle, and the seat, went farther and farther away. He cried, feeling abundantly too small for this large world he now inhabited. His uncle did not respond to the plight. He merely kept playing his concerto with apathy. Perhaps he didn't hear him?

Andrew screamed for his uncle and found that his voice made no sound. He felt like his vocal cords were moving, he felt like he was making noise, and he heard nothing. He tried again, and again, and again, yelling for his uncle that did not move unless it was to turn the page. With a start, he realized that the piece his uncle was playing merely repeated, over, and over. It had been several moments, and the music had gone from relaxing to purely scary without changing a note, comforting, and yet terrifying, in the way that an old doll was. Ragged, well-loved, and out of style. 

His efforts were useless. He couldn't climb to his uncle, he wasn't old enough to even begin to attempt it. Even his crying and frantic leaping had taken his energy, until he could do nothing but fall to his knees and bawl. He felt ridiculous, being so upset by something as silly as not being able to reach his uncle. But the man should be dead, to see him and not be able to reach him was just so... Frustrating! He couldn't help but wail.

All at once, he became aware of a few things. His sniffling now made sound, he could feel his tears down his face. That, and his uncle had stopped playing. One hand set politely in his lap, the other offered to Andrew, who snapped his head up. His uncle was smiling at him, full of love and concern. Of course, it would be, he was making a fool of himself. With one final snort and a rub of his eyes with his hand, he took his uncle's in both of his and held on. Andross lifted him, and set him on the bench beside him, snuggled into his side. It was warm, and Andrew leaned into him.

_Do you remember how to play?_

The words were not spoken, Andrew could not hear them. His uncle's mouth moved, but his words floated into his ears a moment later, like a delay on a television program. Now suitably consoled, Andrew looked to the piano. It was normal sized now, as was the bench he was sat upon. However, normal it may have been, but his arms were too short to reach it. Faced with such an unsolvable dilemma, he looked to his uncle again, for guidance.

Andross' smile was still sweet and serene. _Of course. How silly of me. You can't reach it._ Eager to teach, he accommodated Andrew's problem by taking the snow monkey's hands in his own, spreading out his fingers like they were set on the keys. _Here now. Do you remember?_

 _Do I remember?_ Of course, he did. He had taken many lessons as a child, just like this, with his uncle. In his main laboratory, in the center of Corneria city. He remembered being there almost all the time, when his parents were busy. As he thought about it, he couldn't remember anything but being with his uncle. It wasn't important. His uncle was here now, after he had been gone for so long. Andrew tipped his head up and grinned, happy to spend time with the man again. On cue, his uncle picked him up and hugged him close with an arm.

After a moment of silence, Andrew took his head out of his uncle's side.

They were no longer at the piano. Now they were elsewhere, still in the void, but somewhere... Else. The piano was no longer there. What was there was a crypto sleep casket, with something inside. Startled by the sight, Andrew hid his face again, his uncle's side was the safest place to be.

_Aw, don't be scared, Andrew. She is nothing to be afraid of._

Emboldened, Andrew peeked an eye out. Upon second glance, Andross was right, it wasn't so scary. The figure inside the casket was a fox. Her ears were sliced in half, and parts of her limbs were replaced with advanced cybernetics, but. It was a lady fox, petite in size, kept perfectly preserved and asleep. The casket itself was inlaid with gold and intricate engravings, a work of art that had likely taken many, many hours to complete. It wasn't that bad at all, her clothes were white and pristine, likely brand new. She was nothing to be afraid of.

Andrew freed his face entirely and leaned his head back against his uncle, cheek pressed firmly to his chest. _Who is she?_

_A friend. She made a mistake, and she is ill. I'm keeping her like this until I can heal her._

_When will that be?_

_I am unsure. Perhaps a hundred years, perhaps a thousand, perhaps more. But I will put her back together again. **We** will put her back together again, Andrew._

_Okay, uncle._ Andrew felt his eyelids getting heavier as his uncle thought at him. He could fall asleep right here, held in his uncle's arm, before this cryptosleep casket. A nap sounded wonderful at the moment.

_Go ahead, Andrew. You can sleep. I will wake you up when I have need of you._

Sleep. Sleep. _Sleep._ Something wiggled at the back of his mind, a persistent, constant thought. Something about sleep. Something about waking up, something about this not being right. Of course it was right, what would be wrong about falling asleep in his uncle's arm? He always had a nap after his schooling. Always. He had been doing this for years.

_Years. Sleep. Wake up. Wake up!_

That was what was wrong. He was no longer six years old. He was twenty-four, an adult, and his uncle was dead. He shouldn't be asleep. He had to wake up. Get up! This wasn't _right!_

Andrew, now fully awake and cognizant he was falling into a rest he may never wake from, wiggled out of his uncle's iron-tight grasp. He struggled and fought, eventually extracting himself and trying to jump down onto the floor. Instead of his feet hitting the solid, glassy surface, he went through it like nothing was there, falling, falling. His uncle stared down at him, slowly growing smaller as Andrew fell deeper, deeper towards the light from below.

_I will wake you up when I have need of you._

_When I have need of you._

_So, Andross. Wake up._


	18. Player Two

Andrew woke up. Somewhat dazed, somewhat confused, blinking away the heavy fog of his mind. It lay over him, heavier than the light blanket somebody had deemed it prudent to give him. There were new arrivals and departures, Panther and Sophronia, originally sequestered in the Rampion, were here. Sophronia had sprawled out on the floor with a sleeping bag, likely having drawn the short stick. Panther was on the couch, equally sprawled, or as far as he could be. Wolf had leaned back in his armchair and also passed out, and Leon and Eve were nowhere to be found. 

He picked up his hand, heavy as lead, and drew it down his face. He was exhausted still, the headache going from the beat of an ice pick to a low hum, like a drill. Wolf stirred somewhat, but as Andrew noticed and stopped moving, he calmed. It had to be night, judging by the light filtering through the drawn curtains, which was to say, very little. That was why the party had disbanded and the attendants fell asleep. He reached for his glass of water, now lukewarm, and had a sip as he contemplated his dream. _Uncle. I haven't dreamed about him in... Forever, really. Wonder what Wolf would think._

His world, he reflected, falling back onto his makeshift couch bed, had become Wolf. Wolf dictated where he slept, if he ate, Wolf was the ruler of his universe. He found he didn't much mind it, after all, Wolf had always done what was best for him. Hadn't he?

With a powerful surge of resentment, so powerful it startled him, Andrew tightened his hands into fists. Yes, Wolf had betrayed him before. Was it betrayal? Was it a necessity? Did it matter if it still stung? A whirlwind of old memories threatened to crowd out his coherency, as the medication dragged him under again. Back to dreams.

* * *

Pain was not a familiar companion. Andrew lived what some may consider to be a 'spoiled' lifestyle. The worst injury he had ever gotten, he could remember, was as a child. He had pulled a beaker off a counter and promptly smashed it onto his foot. It had bruised and he had cried for a week. He couldn't have been any older than five. That was the last time he had been hurt, though he'd been injured in dogfights. He counted these 'Lylat Wars' as one long streak of being hurt, one large injury, and it seemed he had sustained a new one. With philosophical ramblings out of the way, he deigned it proper to open his eyes.

The eye he could open gave him nothing useful. His world was black, dark and muggy, the only way he could tell which way was up was the direction his tail hung. Downwards, still strapped into his cockpit, though jostled and banged up. His tongue was thick and heavy in his mouth, and he realized his hands were clutched so tightly to his steering column that they had gone numb. He gently pried them off of it, and shaky hands rose to his face. He brushed a frock of bloodied fur from his face, opening his other eye, sticky with fluid. It was probably blood, he refused to entertain the idea it was anything else. The shakes migrated from his hands to his whole body, and suddenly his arms wrapped around his body and squeezed. _Okay, okay, okay, don't freak out, don't freak out._

How could he not panic? This was Venom. He had lived here, but lived in the prosperous zone. The habitable zone covered perhaps ten percent of the planet, the odds that he crashed somewhere hospitable were low. Astronomically low. He felt himself wanting to cry, but stubbornly wiped his eyes. He forced his panic and rising revulsion down and gulped, rubbing his eyes and gasping. _No no no no no no. You're bigger than that. The others._ The others. They should be alive, right? Pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes, for a moment, he escaped the rising tide by giving his hands something to do. He pressed buttons. He shifted the steering column. He flicked switches. Nothing. His Wolfen II was dead, inert in his hands. His implants had been knocked to the floor in the crash, but it should still start, and run, without the advanced interface. Without his Wolfen, he couldn't call for help. If he couldn't call for help...

A low buzzing pressed against his eardrums. He had thought it tinnitus, some leftover from being shot down, but perhaps it wasn't. With more than a few tries and most of his energy, he managed to free himself from his protective restraints. Hauling himself up on unsteady legs, Andrew banged his hands against the glass of his cockpit until it saw fit to pop open, and as he pressed it up, he choked. Geysers rose around him, belching hot, toxic steam. Perhaps against his better judgment, he leaned out and wiped some of the caked-on mud off his ship, then ducked back inside. He slammed the glass back down with a clang, and looked out from his vantage point.

What he saw was not comforting. He saw the furrow his Wolfen II left in the ground. From the ravine he gouged, he judged he hit at nearly full speed. His Wolfen II had taken most of the damage on the nose, and flipped over a few times. It was a wonder he had not died. Parts lay strewn onto the ground around him, some undoubtedly having fallen into the geysers, where they would be lost in the acrid water. If it could even be called water, and not acid, but that was unimportant. He peeked out further, beyond the wreckage of his craft. Mud sloughed off the top of his ship, loosened by the steam, and he could see more and more of the sky as it opened to him.

The source of the buzzing was uncovered, with a wet squelching sound, and at first, Andrew thought they were hornets. As they drew closer, he determined they were not, in fact, insects of the traditional type. More like vultures, the black, yellow, blue and silver CDF crafts began to circle around, canvassing the area from a distance. With his destroyed ship, he bet they wouldn't take notice of him whatsoever, would think him dead and leave it at that. However, realization clawed through his foggy, injured mind. _The team could be alive. They could be injured, abandoned, and here I am!_

Adrenaline jolted through his body, but he crumbled in it's wake, and all he managed to do was shift his weight and flop back down. It was no use at all. Where could he go? He was likely in shock, though nothing was broken in him. He let his eyes shut, and attempted to calm his breathing, as new noises assaulted his ears. Ships, far off in the distance. _Of course the CDF would land. Probably want to pick the bodies._

No, he reasoned with himself, sluggish and deeply tired, though deeply pained too. Those were ships starting. Not landing. Happiness rushed through him, warm, inviting, and invigorating. It lended him strength enough to get up, look through his glass cockpit. _Star Wolf! The guys! They're alive! They're alive and they're-_  
  
 _Leaving me_. Horror sluiced through him, dashing through his glee like ice cubes down his back. _They're leaving me! No! They can't do that!_

Yet, they could. They didn't know he was alive, and as the roar of frantic engines grew louder, he spotted them. A trio of ships, clunky and sputtering, but in working condition. They had crashed several, several miles away, but he could see them as they raced to the sky. Small dots, but the glow of a Wolfen was so familiar to him. As they went up? The CDF came down, howling like hyenas for whatever was left of the Venomian Army, dashed against the rocks of the Cornerian Defense Force. Andrew didn't have the strength to beat his fists on the glass and wail. Instead, he sank back into his seat, put his head to his knees, and let himself cry.

* * *

Sometime later, after the bombing had long since stopped and the world began to breathe again, Andrew raised his head. The glow of the world had subsided and given way to nighttime. It was beautiful, on Venom, with little artificial light pollution, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Had he slept? No clue. He wiped his eyes, now free of blood thanks to the lubricating power of tears, and tipped back into his seat. Sniveling like this, he was little better than a child. He could wait for death to find him, or survive. An easy path, or a hard path, and lazy as he was, he didn't want to die. Dying didn't sound pleasant. As he forced himself to come to terms with his situation, he began to rack his brain.

_Think, Andrew. You are alone on a hostile planet. Your ship doesn't work. What do you do? What's the first step to survival?_

_Food._ His stomach howled its ravenousness, and he was forced to bring himself back to reality. The stars offered no sustenance, but he knew where it could be found. Numb, blunt fingers reached into his glove compartment, and fished out a granola bar. He sat for a moment, chewing thoughtfully as the sweet and salty flavors were lost on him, in his emotional state. Pulling it together was not on his priority list. He tossed the wrapper to the floor, and then reached back for water, he knew he kept a bottle. Instead, his fingers brushed something unfamiliar. Cold, foreign, and not his. Blinking away the stinging that comes after prolonged tears, he sat up and took hold of it. Drawing it out, he blinked, nearly dumbfounded.

It was a knife. A decent one, too, he could tell as he unsheathed it. Serrated on one side, a smooth blade on the other, it was brand new and sharp. _How'd it..._ Clarity dawned on him, as the geysers around him puffed out more steam. Wolf. His boss had done a last, cursory check on everyone's Wolfens, before the flight out to meet Star Fox. He was thorough and stubborn, but Wolf was prepared in all things. Andrew remembered the gruff baritone from hours prior.

_No food? No water? The fuck are you gonna do if we end up not being able to land?_

_But-_

_No buts. Go take a last bathroom trip, I'll find you food._

In an almost prophetic move, Wolf must have gifted him a knife, just in case. If his ribs weren't sore from sobbing, he'd laugh. There was a time when life was cut from the fabric of the world by knives. It was by no means a saving grace. His fate was still in his hands. However, if he had a knife, he had a multitool. He had a weapon, he had something to procure wood with, a means of doing all sorts of things. He had a pack of tools in his cargo space, those could be used to repair his ship, he knew there would be parts to scavenge if only he looked. Though his mood was crushed, as he realized he had no formal survival training, it firmly perked itself up again, buoyant against the waves of depression. He would not be crippled by it. He was an Oikonny. He was smart. He was determined to make out of here. All he needed was to find his future, grasp it, and refuse to let go until it pulled him off this hell planet and into the stars. From there? He could figure it out.

"One step at a time, Oikonny," he breathed, sheathing the knife and forcing himself to stand and greet the cool night air, flinging open the cockpit of his Wolfen. "You have a long road ahead of you." 


	19. Press Nifty

The dull hum and murmur of voices dragged Andrew from his dreams, swimming to the murky surface. As his head broke water, and he opened his eyes and shifted, heads turned to look at him. It was morning time, that was clear, the light from the window was thin and bright. Like tea, he thought, similar to the teacup Leon was holding, perched on a stool beside Andrew's 'bed'. With a somewhat sardonic smile, he gave a soft "good morning, Sleeping Beau," and dove back into his tea. Confused, Andrew sat up all the way, rubbing down the hair he knew would be a mess and looking at the assorted faces. He took note that they were all pinched with worry, even Eve's. Even Wolf, who tended to struggle with emotion, seemed to show some concern.

"What did I miss?" The simian's attempt at a joke fell painfully flat, and he cringed a bit. Something was wrong, he could feel it in the air.

The assorted patrons of Eve's hospitality shared glances, and eventually, Wolf cleared his throat. "You were just tossing around a bit. We were getting worried about you. You, uh. Feelin' okay?" Wolf's concern was not new, however, having him voice it so openly was. Emotions were not the lupine's strong suit, and it was somewhat touching to have him drop his veneer to bridge the gap. Hot shame flooded through Andrew, rubbing the back of his neck.

Wolf would never abandon him, and he knew it quite plainly. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just had a few bad dreams was all. Can I have some tea too?" That was not a joke, but an actual request, and Eve rose to the occasion. Literally rose, coiled up upon herself, she 'stood' a little taller and began to move. This was achieved by raising the top half of her body, to give her the 'height' that rose above the rest of her body on the floor. _Living as a naga must be odd,_ Andrew reflected.

"Of course you may. I hope you don't mind, it's mesquite tea."

"Sounds exotic." The urge to follow her with his eyes popped into his mind, but he ignored it and instead focused on stretching out. His limbs ached like he had run a marathon, and his head, while painless, felt heavy. _Probably just dehydration. Probably._

Saucer and cup were placed delicately before him, on a small coffee table, and he took them gratefully. Tea was not something he usually drank, but if it was offered, he didn't want to cause her any further problems. She disliked him, it was clear, and by all means, she didn't need to help him. Silence reigned, for a time.

"I owe you an apology."

Unexpected, the words caused Andrew to flick his brows up at her, giving her his full attention as he swallowed. He opened his mouth to reply, but she raised a finger at him. "Please, let me finish." Cowed by that simple act, Andrew obeyed, shut his mouth, and sipped his tea quietly while she gathered strength. Eventually, she spoke again, looking at the table instead of him.

"I was wrong to react so... Harshly, towards you. I didn't know you, I hadn't met you, but I have met your uncle." Her hands came up to grip her arms, and she rubbed them a little, up and down. "He was less than kind to me, and it came out on you. For that, I was in the wrong, and I'm sorry." Fingers dug into her lab coat, clutching, almost, as she continued on. "Being under Andross' employ gave me a very... Jaded view of the bloodline, and I do want to make it up to you. For being so hateful when you needed me. So..." She took a breath and removed the pill bottle from before from her coat pocket. It was now full, rather than nearly empty, though the pills were somewhat different. "I took a crack at the formula. I think it's right, and it should help you next time you get those headaches. Just. Follow the instructions your uncle wrote. This kind of thing is probably hereditary." Her hand extended to him, offering him the bottle. An olive branch, though it was colored orange.

Andrew blinked, and blinked again, as if this was a dream. Eve was being polite to him. She had changed her mind about him, and chose to be kind, rather than to hate. Was this a dream? Was he being pranked? He set the cup and saucer down on the coffee table, and reached forward to take it from her. He examined the labeling. The instructions were clear, to take two and have a nap at the first onset of an unidentifiable headache. Limit caffeine consumption to prevent false positives, don't take more than one in two weeks, on and one it went. His uncle's handwriting, smudged before, had been touched up and wrapped in plastic to preserve the ink. The bottle was a new one, bigger around then the one previous, and had a count of at least sixty pills. Almost a year and a half's supply, if he followed these instructions. It was a boon, he wouldn't have to come back for more for a very long time. As if she could read his thoughts, Eve piped up again.

"I got the formula down, so. It's in your comms. So you don't have to come and see me again, if you don't want to. I don't blame you. I was an ass." Manning up to admit mistakes is one thing, but to have the strength to apologize for them too? It spoke to her character. Andrew didn't have the mental strength to speak about that quite yet, but he could, however, clear his throat and nod.

"Thank you, Eve. I'm sorry about... Whatever Andross did." Best not to call him 'uncle'.

The gamble paid off, and Eve graced him with a small smile. "It's in the past now. Want breakfast?"

"Yes please."

* * *

The healing had commenced and been over with, but there was still plenty more to do. Eve had extended her original blunt form of hospitality to allow them to stay a few days, to enjoy Papetoon. This suited Panther and Leon just fine, but for those who had more fur, like Andrew and the O'Donnells? This was a true form of hell. The offer was only accepted for one day, to run into town and stock up on some hard to get supplies. Namely, Leon's favored spices, and Panther's favorite cologne. Along with a crate of other bits and bobs that it became the job of Wolf and Andrew to load, in the evening hours. 

Grunt work was not Andrew's specialty. He was not, as Wolf would put it, 'beefy'. He was slender, fine-boned, and wirey. However, as he helped Wolf carry the crate up the ramp and into the cargo hold of the Rampion, he began to see why Wolf wanted him out here. As the crate was set down, Andrew wiped his brow with an arm and came face to face with Wolf. Ah. A confrontation. He was expecting such a thing, though he didn't yet have the energy to steel himself for it. "How ya feelin', pup?"

To lie to Wolf was to invite disaster, so he sat down heavily on the floor and rubbed his hands vigorously through his hair. "Tired. So tired. I feel like I need more sleep, but it's not that kind of tired. It's just. Deep tired, bone-tired, but sleep won't fix it, and you're just-"

"Stuck," Wolf supplied. Andrew glanced up through his fingers.

"Yeah, stuck's the word. I'll be okay, I'm just drained, is all. I don't have a headache anymore, so if a few days of fatigue is the tradeoff, I'm happy to sign on."

A snort of laughter came from Wolf, as he crouched down to be more at Andrew's eye level. That was somewhat difficult, with how tall Andrew was, so Wolf wasn't about to miss the opportunity. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Is this an episode of Justice Trudy?" Humor was his defense, but Andrew could tell Wolf was having absolutely none of it.

"I'm serious. What happened when you were asleep?"

"I slept."

_"Andrew."_

Warning in the tone made him wince, and Andrew gave up his fight. Being difficult had lost its flavor. "I dreamed some dreams. I dreamed about my uncle for a little while, then I woke up and had a drink of water."

"Did he say anything... Important, to you? Anything that sticks out?"

 _I will wake you up when I have need of you. Andross. Wake up_. "No."

A quirk of Wolf's brow told Andrew that he didn't believe him, but as his lips stayed sealed, Wolf sighed and moved on. "Okay, so. You dreamed about your uncle. Anything else that's too important?"

"I dreamed of Venom."

The lupine's attention was snared at once. "Venom? When you were there?" The unspoken words 'by yourself' hung in the air. Andrew refused to rise to the bait, adjusting how he sat on the cold Rampion's floor.

"Yeah. It wasn't anything too important though, I've mostly forgotten about it by now." He would not broach the subject of the knife. Andrew had kept it, of course, locked away in his drawers. It was nearly impossible to keep clean and sharp on both sides without the proper tools, and he didn't want to look at it. It hurt to think about Venom, and thus, he didn't. Deeming that he didn't want to divulge any further precious secrets, Andrew got to his feet and stretched. It was overly casual, and an end to the conversation. "Come on, let's go back inside. They're playing cards."

As if to escape a beast, Andrew moved far too quickly to escape the Rampion and Wolf's inquiries. Left stunned behind him, Wolf could do nothing but stare after Andrew, and he felt the stare hot on his back. Wolf was struck dumb by the abrupt end to the discussion, and all he could toss out was "how do you know that?!"

Andrew ducked inside Eve's house, and refused to give an answer.


	20. That Looks Dubious to Me.

_It is a very nice day today! My crystals are happy. I am happy. The team is relaxed. However, I can sense something dark on the horizon. I have been informed that the man I tangled with in the sky was Andrew, who was previously thought to have been killed a long time ago. I shall ask about him again in tonight's game of Teach The Alien._

_I do not like the name of this game. However, Falco and Slippy insist. I will oblige._   
  
_Krystal, Journal 3, 26 current days of record-keeping_

* * *

"So, that is why you call this holiday 'Yule?'"

"That's the long and short of it, Krys." Replied Fox, tipped back in his chair. In a green tank top and tan cargo pants with long white socks, the scourge of the skies looks downright casual. He was casual in fact, Krystal had to take note of such things, after all. For research purposes. When not parading about in his flight suit and jacket McCloud could be delightfully down to earth. Mellow, she supposed was the most fitting word. She could always feel the emotion humming in the back of his mind, but as a baseline? He was no hotshot pilot, like Falco. He was just an average man, a man who liked to be lazy and loaf about, when he could. He got precious few chances to do so.

Sat in the chair at her desk, Krystal was not doing a similar amount of 'loafing'. In fact, she was paying keen attention to every word spoken, ears erect and tilted forwards, twisting this way and that to catch the voices around her. This was a session of what she called 'acclimating'. Every weekend, Star Fox would gather to answer her questions about Lylat that she had collected over the week, to educate her, bit by bit, about the system she found herself in. A system like this had to be developed, so she didn't sprinkle questions upon everybody all day, every day. This was a much-needed exercise too, in team-building and in general knowledge. It was a good time for most, with tea of varying temperatures strewn about. Unless you were... How did Falco address this?

Ah yes, an 'absolute buffoon' like Slippy, who preferred soda during these sessions. Pot and kettle notwithstanding, the avian in question liked to call this 'Teach The Alien', and Krystal had given up on changing his mind. Her friendship with him was tentative. He did not like her, that was clear. He hadn't liked her since they first met when she was rescued from Sauria. Against her inclusion on the team from the beginning, Falco had wanted to leave her with Pepper. Fox and Peppy had shot that notion down, but his dislike persisted. She thought she may have been stepping into his space, after Sauria, and he had only just begun to warm up to her. In his own Falco way, lightly teasing her while he languished in his swiveling seat. "If you ask some other people, they'll spin you another yarn, but that's the common tale. At least, it's the one I heard as a chick."

"It's a lot older'n you kids, I heard the same thing as a kit." Peppy's light Katina drawl punctuated the air from where he sat at his own desk. His tea of choice was sweet and cold, and woe to any who questioned his choice of drink. "And I reckon it's what was told to my parents too."

Falco's beak opened, likely to take a crack at Peppy's age, but Slippy intervened first. Krystal would call the Toad's timing 'divine', in fact. "I'm sure we could stop in Corneria and get you the actual written story if you wanted!"

A smile crept across Krystal's face, and she shook her head lightly. "No, thank you boys. I think that is enough on that subject."

Fox sipped his ginger ale from the bottle and watched her, ears pricked in her direction. His sitting position was dangerous, chair tipped daringly far back. He and Falco, she surmised, were in some sort of 'pissing match' as to who could lean back farthest before they fell out. Falco was winning, so far. "Any other questions?"

Did she have anything else to ask? Her hand came up to her chin to stroke it, tapping her fingers against her delicate little cheek. It was but a moment before her voice cut the air again, strong, clear, and slightly accented. Her natural Cerinian lilt had begun to wore off, due to her time in space with these delightful characters. "Yes, I do. What was all that ruckus about? With the Andrew fellow?"

The mood changed at once, from vibrant and happy to somewhat subdued. Krystal would even call it 'melancholy', as nobody breached the silence. Nobody but Slippy, who cleared his throat and piped up at last. "He was a Star Wolf pilot in the Lylat Wars. The opposite side of the line." To punctuate how much he did not wish to be involved in this, he popped a chocolate fly cluster in his mouth. Brave as ever, Falco reached across his desk to help himself to the snacking, taking one and chewing on it thoughtfully. He and Slippy could stomach insects. Krystal pretended not to notice this odd food choice, as Fox grimaced across the bridge.

"Thought that guy was dead as a doornail," Falco said, swallowing before he continued. "Guess the CDF didn't look all that hard before they wrote us a check. Pepper callin' was why Fox hit the Fuck Button." A sharp noise from Peppy and a glare from McCloud made the displeasure over the name of the button felt. Fox felt that it was a very important tool, that button. It could call the team to arms in a moment if the need arose, and he and Peppy were attempting to stamp out the disrespect. Falco, oblivious to such psychic attacks, ate another cluster, dodging under Slippy's warding hand. "It's kinda bad he's still up and kickin'."

With a roll of his eyes and a shake of his head, Fox spoke again. "Andrew used to go to the Academy with Slippy and I. He was a good pilot, and one day he just... Up and vanished. Day before we were supposed to get assigned to squadrons. They turned the base upside down, he was considered a missing person for a while. Or a deserter. Never saw him again, until the war."

"And the war was supposed to be the end of it all," finished Peppy. His tea had rapidly been drained, until only ice and the dregs of the beverage remained. "Until he just popped back up again. If he's around, then-"

Peppy's voice was cut off by ROB's own, startling the hare. A familiar, if unhappy drone of a message came floating to the assorted ears of the team.

_INCOMING MESSAGE FROM : GENERAL PEPPER."_

Falco, of course, only in shorts and no shirt whatsoever, scrambled from his chair darted out of the room. Likely to acquire something more befitting a message from the General, rather than lounging with the people he lived with. Nobody much minded, least of all the lady in the room, who came to the Great Fox wearing little better than a bikini. She still did not understand Lylatian fashion, however, she did understand the comforts of sweatpants and a t-shirt. Attire fit for the General? No. Better than shorts, and nothing else? Oh yes.

ROB did not wait for Fox's permission to put Pepper through, and did so of his own accord. The War Hound appeared on the display screen as Fox kicked his chair back, rolling all the way to halt beside Krystal. His presence was calming, though now she could sense the undertow of anxiety in him. Pepper calling was rarely about a raise, and something about this struck Krystal with... Was it called _deja vu?_

"Pepper here!"

A soft murmur of "aye aye, Captain" from Slippy went unnoticed by the General. His face was haggard, pinched with something akin to fear. He was keeping it together, although barely. Something must have happened, and Falco was the only one with the gall to mention it, slipping back into the room.

"What's up, Gen'ral?" He had acquired a pair of pants from somewhere, and Krystal saw him zipping up his jacket over his bare feathers, as he swaggered in. Part of Krystal doubted the pants were his. Again, the General either did not notice this breach in etiquette or simply did not care enough to raise a stink over it.

The words were a rapid staccato, like a frightened cat running across a drumset. "You got into an altercation with Star Wolf outside of Aquas not long ago."

"If by not long ago, you mean over a week," Falco grumbled as he settled. All parties involved ignored this shot at Pepper's apparent tardiness.

"Yes sir," Fox replied, always the one to speak to Pepper. He had a strong, commanding tone to him, and had gone through Academy with high marks. He knew how to avoid any sort of disrespect, not that Pepper had any real control over them. He couldn't make them run laps around the Great Fox, not from Corneria at least. General Pepper very rarely left the planet nowadays.

The time for formalities was cut short. "You had a confirmed sighting of Andrew Oikonny?"

Krystal, breaking the status quo, cleared her throat. "I am very sure he was the one you are talking about." Thinking back on their fight, she shivered. She had never had somebody push back like that before, so violently, so... Strongly. It was like he had done such a thing before. It was uncomfortably familiar. "Without a shadow of a doubt to be seen."

The bedraggled, exhausted look on Pepper's face only deepened. The General pinched the bridge of his nose, then scratched under his cap with a mutter. At once, as if he had never been anything but a statue, he straightened up again. "I do not need to tell you not to mention this." Stiff and formal, the words brokered no arguments and invited no quarter. None rose. "Especially not to the media. This is considered highly classified information, and if word of Andrew Oikonny being alive got out-" All of a sudden, Pepper looked over his shoulder. Quiet descended. Pepper cleared his throat, and turned back to his charges, voice lowered. 

"It would be very bad if it were to escape to the public. It may even kick off another round of the war, so please. Do not say anything to anyone who asks, unless I give you explicit permission."

Star Fox did not work for the Cornerian Defense Force. Truthfully, Fox could tell Pepper to pound sand, and spread the information anywhere he chose to. However, with Pepper's history with his father, and with Peppy... He found it hard to do so. "Haven't said a word to anybody yet, General Pepper. We'll keep it that way." Though his face remained impassive and focused, Krystal could sense some of the irritation scratching at Fox. He didn't like to take orders, and he especially didn't like Andrew being involved. She would have to ask him about this later.

Some of the rigidity in Pepper's shoulders drained as Fox reassured the General that the secret was not yet out. With a breath, he stood tall again, but it was clear to Krystal that he was relieved. "Thank you, Star Fox. Do you have any idea what the Star Wolf team was after?"

"No clue," Slippy shrugged, shaking his head. "My dad didn't see anything. They must have dipped into Aquas and been right back out again! No stealing or anything!"

Pepper's mouth twitched in a downturn. "That is concerning. Report back if you have any further information."

"You always know what we know, Pepper." Usually, nobody could get away with being so informal to the General. However, Peppy had a pass, the pass of an old and longstanding friendship. He could reassure the Spaniel when nobody else could. "We'll keep an eye out for Andrew. Don't worry."

The General sighed, shoulders slumping. This time, the proud Spaniel did not bother to lift them again, eyes remaining closed from his expression of weariness. "Yes. Well. Thank you. Pepper out."

As the image of Pepper departed, breath returned to the room. Falco immediately shed his jacket and groaned, tossing it to the floor and sinking so far down into his chair Krystal was surprised he could still be seen over the landscape of his desk. "Does he think we're stupid or something?"

"He's just being careful, Falco," Fox shot back, getting out of his seat. Even though he was only near Krystal for a few minutes, she was sad to see him go. "Come on, go get dressed and get in your Arwing. I need to go fly and shoot at something that won't sit still."

Falco's eyes had shut and had not yet opened, not even to the challenge Fox pushed at him. "I'll sit still to spite you."

"Then you can fight with Slippy over the repair bill." Fox's tone made something in Falco finally stir, as the vulpine left the bridge. With a great big heave of a sigh, Falco dragged himself to his feet, like he could think of no worse torment, and plodded off. Krystal knew this was faked. They would go and scrap it out, and then come back, laughing and enjoying one another's company as they always did. Krystal could not say she shared such sentiments, but she offered a ghost of a smile as the two retreated to bury their woes in laser fire. They had ways of relieving stress, and she had hers.

Rising from her own soft, cushioned chair, she looked to Peppy and Slippy. "Either of you up to join me in meditation?" The offer hung, unclaimed, but Krystal did not mind. As she hurried to her own room, the room she had repurposed for sitting and 'meditating' in, she could not escape this feeling. A feeling that something hung over her shoulder, watching, and was not yet ready to allow her to go.


	21. Quitter

_Andrew seems to be feeling a hell of a lot better. We shipped out of Eve's place yesterday to head back to Sargasso, and he hasn't had a crippling headache since. He seems off, again, but a lot more jovial than before. Sure beats having him posted up on the couch whining, is all I can say. I really, really hope it stays this way, otherwise... Well, I'm not sure how much more abuse his body can take. He's been through too much for a kid his age as it is._

_Our Wolfens have sat in the hangar for days, and he keeps pestering me to take 'em out. Fine. They need a dusting off anyway, Soph can pilot the Rampion._

_Wolf O'Donnell, Log 2611, six years after Venom_

* * *

The low puttering of a Wolfen's engines was music to Wolf's ears. It had been days since his last 'proper' flight, in the rush to get Andrew to Papetoon, his Wolfen had been left to languish. It had been a few days before Andrew collapsed, a few more for him to get to Venom. Then, they had spent two and a half more days at Eve's home, and now another day in the sky on the Rampion. Red Fang did not appreciate the time by her lonesome, and he felt as if she was refusing to cooperate out of spite. A jilted lover who's beau was being neglectful, she was refusing to play nice, he felt every bit the abashed fool who left a ship like her to herself. He was at home, in the deep, open sky, and eventually, Red Fang calmed herself and began to fly normally. The sudden jerks in his arms calmed, he could hold her at a steady speed, all things he knew was just the beginning formation of rust he was shaking off. Red Fang was not alive, nor was she a woman, but in his mind, he could play pretend. He could pretend she was an old flame, and he was warmed by her presence in his hands again.

Analogies of women and starfighters aside, he did enjoy flying in formation. He was allowing Leon to lead the pack, at the head of their diamond shape, and he was also keeping an eye on Andrew. The macaque seemed to have all his coordination back, running some makeshift tests with the lizard in the Rampion to prove it, and Wolf wanted to see if he could fly. So far, so good, Andrew hadn't veered off course or fired a shot by accident, and they had run drills on some meteors to prove he could fight. He seemed to be better, save for a sensation in his head he could only describe as 'weight'. Wolf was content to let it go without questioning it. Shooting the shit with his men over comms was something he didn't know he could miss so much, but abject panic made you appreciate the little things in life.

"So, Panther, how much fooling around did you get to do when you left for town?" A session of banter was in order, Wolf thought. To liven up the mood and get them all back into the swing of things. "We haven't been somewhere other than Sargasso in a long time."

The feline's scandalized gasp was audible, and Wolf could see, out of the corner of his eye, the dramatic clutch of Panther's chest. That card, he couldn't help but snicker as the cat voiced his outrage. _**"Panther is offended! He did no such thing! He was far too busy to fool!"**_

**_"We both know you are full of shit, Panther, I saw you ducking into a side street. I did not see a florist there either."_ **

Wolf guffawed as Panther made spitting and hissing noises, attempting to defend his honor from such ribald accusations. To even get Leon in on the camaraderie was a treat, it was rare they were all in such a pleasant mood! All thanks to Andrew's recovery, speedy and miraculous as it seemed. However, the man of the hour was, remarkably, silent. Wolf noted that silence as Leon's subdued laughter and Panther's pissed-off spluttering died out. Not a single chuckle from Andrew, even from messing with Panther? He of the most pronounced reactions? Something was up, and Wolf wanted to get down to the bottom of it.

"Hey, kid. What's up? You're not dying on me again, are you? Only have one magic snake lady, and she ain't here."

_**"Huh?"**_ A muffled crackling, accompanied by fabric shifting played over Andrew's comm. Probably eating a snack in his cockpit. _**"Oh, uh. No. I'm still alive, as far as I can tell."**_

_**"Well that's good, now isn't it? Keep it that way. It is good for us all that you remained intact."** _

_**"Except for those Cornerians, the media would have a field day if they knew! Panther would love to see the faces off the masses if that got out!"** _

_**"Trust me, you do NOT want that to happen."** _

Panther's loud laughing was cut short by the seriousness of Andrew's tone, dying in his mouth. The mood became somewhat subdued and awkward, as Panther hawked to clear his throat. As was tradition when things went south with the resident primate, Wolf made a soft 'ahem' and manned up. His social skills were horrific, but he seemed to have a way with Andrew, at least when it came to making him say things he did not otherwise wish to divulge. Perhaps it was the fear of getting his ass kicked, though Wolf would never raise a hand against Andrew. Other space pirates, yes. His team? Never. Perhaps it was just in his nature. Or, perhaps, he and Andrew had grown close enough for Andrew to speak to him. "I've always wondered. Why were you so adamant about hiding from others?"

_**"What are you talking about? I've never hidden."**_ Andrew's tone over the comms was shifty, but Wolf refused to let him off the hook with such a terrible answer. He would find the root of this.

Especially with such a blatant lie covering it up. To lie to Wolf invited only harm and bad luck. "Yes, you have been hiding. Especially with that little stealth box you invented. We don't have it, on our craft, and it'd be pretty fuckin' useful to have. So what's the dealio, kid?" Dealio. He sounded like a dad.

It would have been more useful to have this conversation face to face, where he could give Andrew the disappointed frown. Wolf could see Andrew's portrait in the side of his screen blink out, likely to stop him from doing exactly that. Without Wolf's imposing stare forcing words from his mouth, Andrew chewed on his answer, before answering a question with a question.

_**"What was expected of you?"** _

"Ex-fuckin-scuse me?"

_**"When my uncle hired you. What did he want you to do?"** _

"Kick ass, take names, protect him. You know what I was hired to do. Why are you asking something like that?" 

To major in philosophy would have come naturally to Andrew. _**"Were you never upset about that?"**_

"What? No. That was what I did best, I was born and raised to do that. I just told my dad to beat it and turned ass-beating into a business. What are you getting at?"

The tone of the ape turned from soft and methodical to something a little harder, more determined. _**"I have always had expectations. When I was dead, they disappeared. Everyone thought I was gone, so whatever was expected of me was destroyed. It perished with me."**_

_**"Panther would like to point out, for the court, you are alive."** _

_**"How observant."** _

Comments from the peanut gallery were unneeded and absolutely not the point of this. "Both of you shut your traps," Wolf demanded, before returning to the crisis at hand. "Keep talking, kid, what do you mean?" The O'Donnell found himself leaning a little over his steering column to hear what Andrew had to say next, though it tore his soul out with every word.

_**"Do you really not get it? I'm wanted!"**_ Andrew slammed his hands on the sides of his cockpit, Wolf surmised by the loud clang coming from his end of the comms. _**"I'm friggin' wanted! Corneria wants to kill me, and what about all my uncles men?! If I came back, Fortuna, Papetoon, Macbeth, Venom! They'd all string me up as their goddamn martyr! Their posterchild, face of the new rebellion! I don't want to be responsible for them! I don't want my uncle's MESS!"**_ Another loud clang, likely Andrew slamming his foot on his floor. He could have a temper on him, as Wolf was learning, his own ears tilting down. Andrew's tone rippled with emotion, his words tearing and breaking with what he was feeling. Rage, betrayal, guilt. He almost sounded like he was crying through his tirade, Wolf could only imagine a few hot tears making their way onto the usually-goofy monkey's face. It broke his heart, not that he knew he still had one, looking to his blind side and seeing Andrew with a hand on his head.

_**"I don't want to be my uncle! I don't want the rebellion! If I show my face in public, if Corneria and all their friends found out I was alive and reported it? It would restart the war, and I'd be in the middle of it all!"** _

Andrew had a point. He was Andross' heir to his empire. If word got out he was alive and kicking... The war would restart. Corneria would be beset on all sides by the planets it had thought had been crushed under it's heel. It would be a bloodbath for all those who used to support Andross. Wolf opened his mouth to attempt to find something comforting to say.

Nothing was forthcoming. His comrades were similarly quiet as Andrew sniffed thickly, and then, his comms went silent. His Wolfen turned, slowly, and went back to the Rampion to board, and likely, go and be upset, by himself, in his own room. Wolf had bungled that line of inquiry so thoroughly he was still shell-shocked into silence when Leon's voice reached his ears. Ever a voice of reason, his ears tilted eagerly to absorb whatever Leon had to say.

_**"Nice shot, Wolf. You upset the kid."** _

"Be quiet, Leon."


End file.
